


Bingo

by Jessa



Series: Finnlo/Malec Mash-up [4]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anti-American, Bullying, Casual Racism, Complete, Cultural Differences, Drunk Sex, Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Explicit Consent, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, First Kiss, First Love, First Time, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Inappropriate Erections, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Masturbation, Mentions of Pedophilia, Misogyny, Mutual Masturbation, Nipple Piercings, Nipple Play, Oral Sex, Premature Ejaculation, Pro-Islam, Same-Sex Marriage, Slow Burn, Strangers to Lovers, Too Political, anti-totalitarianism, canon-typical discussions of step-sibling incest, canon-typical dub-con kissing, casual discrimination, discussions of and references to the history of interracial marriage, discussions of institutional racism, explicit discussions of anal sex, explicit discussions of double penetration, ignorant views about people facing homelessness, mentions of fictional accounts of verbal racial abuse, racial stereotyping, references to fictional hate crimes, references to fictional sex crimes, references to fictional violence, references to illicit drug abuse, references to murder/manslaughter, references to pregnancy and surrogacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:28:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 45,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24284398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jessa/pseuds/Jessa
Summary: Alec is mid-way through a Law degree but Izzy is only just starting out at NYU. Alec fully intends to keep a close eye on his sister this semester. To watch out for her and make sure she’s okay. But someone is watching out for Alec too.This is a human AU. The plot loosely follows the way Alec and Magnus get together through the first season-and-a-half of the TV show.You may find this fic contains sensitive and triggering content. Chapters with such content are marked at the start in the notes.
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Series: Finnlo/Malec Mash-up [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721236
Comments: 30
Kudos: 64
Collections: Banned Together Bingo 2020





	1. Sour Snakes

**Author's Note:**

> Update (July 25):
> 
> Thank you for taking a look at this fic!
> 
> This story is inspired by all of the prompts on my original Banned Together 2020 bingo card before the event went on hiatus.
> 
> Chapters 1-11 were written before the event went on hiatus. I wrote these chapters with the original rules in mind (to fill the prompts). I also aimed to use the accompanying citations of censorship provided for each prompt as much as possible within the chapters.
> 
> Chapters 12-18 were written during the hiatus. There were no citations available to use in the chapters as references so these chapters are ‘inspired by’ the prompts.
> 
> Chapters 19-26 were written after the hiatus. I was issued with a new card that had mostly the same prompts but I chose to complete the original prompts. These chapters are a mixture of filling the prompts, using the revised citations that were re-released, and being ‘inspired by’.
> 
> All feedback is welcome on this fic! I hope you enjoy it and thanks once again for checking it out <3
> 
> As a little celebration I made a moodboard; each of the pics from left to right, top to bottom corresponds with a prompt and chapter (24 and 25 correspond to the same prompt) and you can see my card in the final square 😊

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec and Izzy have arrived at Welcome Week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the first prompt on my Bingo card: pro-Islam.

“May I tempt you with a sour snake? They’re halal.”

Alec takes one. “Thank you.”

“Take as many as you want,” the guy fronting the stall promoting the Muslim Student Society says, holding a whole box full of them out to Alec and his younger sister, Izzy. 

It’s the first day of _Welcome Week_ at NYU - the only local college their parents approved of sending them to, of the ones he and Izzy had wanted to go to at least - and Izzy is here to enroll, and Alec is here to make sure she does. Determined to protect her from getting too distracted from that by everything distracting he’s ever heard about this orientation week; the parts that aren’t just about getting course-ready. 

Alec’s never involved himself much in _Welcome_ events before now, beyond just attending the required information sessions and onsite sign-ups for all his Law classes. Even though he’s in his third year here by now. He and Izzy were both allowed to take extended gap years before starting their courses; their parents value international travel and European history so Alec had toured sites in Italy and France, and seen a lot of Church-commissioned paintings of semi-naked and well-endowed angels and archangels in fresco-painted cathedrals. He didn’t really want to know all the details of whatever it was Izzy had seen over there - or done, for that matter - but now she was back home again, and ready for college, he had decided to commit himself to helping her start her first semester of tertiary study on the right foot.

Izzy takes a big handful of sour snakes from the still-proffered box and shovels three into her mouth all at once, as the guy from the stall keeps talking. “We got so many boxes donated to us for this week, I think we’re gonna be eating these til Ramadan. Oh, and before I forget” - he dumps the box on the trestle table at the front of the stall, tosses the tail end of one snake into his mouth, chews on that for a second or two then fumbles around in the roomy front pocket of his _Welcome Week_ apron until he pulls out two flyers; he thrusts one at Alec and the other one at Izzy - “There you both go. _Salam_.”

“This is interesting,” Alec mutters, as he and Izzy wander away together from the stall a few moments after that, reading the information printed on the promotional flyers. The first sour apple taste from the soft, sherbet-coated treat in his mouth is gone now and the sweet flavor of watermelon is spreading across the back of Alec’s tongue. It’s very pleasant. “It says here that Islam is the second-largest religion in the whole world. Did you even know that, Izzy?”

“No, _this_ is interesting Alec,” she overrides, initially still through her mouthful of snakes. “And funny.” She swallows. “It also says here that on Wednesdays they do _Is_ - _Slam Poetry_...get it? That is hilarious. I would go to that. Especially if they had more sour snakes, these are delicious. I could eat a hundred.”

“You better slow down on those,” Alec cautions. “You’re gonna get a stomach ache and then I’ll have to take you home, and you won’t get signed up for anything. You have to get in early if you want your choice of tute times.”

Izzy stops walking and Alec stops too. “Alec,” she says. “Listen for a second. Please?”

“I’m listening.”

“I love you,” Izzy says, and Alec knows she means it but there’s a tone in her voice now that starts to worry him a lot. “You’re my big brother. And I really appreciate it that you care about me enough to have come here with me today, to help me find my way and sign up for stuff…but I can take care of myself. Okay? I’m _twenty-one years old_ , Alec, I’m not a baby. I’m a totally grown-up woman now. Alright?“

“I know that,” he grumbles. “It’s just-”

“It’s _just_ ,” she interrupts again gently, tucking the flyer into one strap of her corset top and putting her hands on his shoulders, and looking up into his face, “You are an absolutely amazing older brother. And my best one ever. And I do appreciate that.”

“I’m your _only_ older one ever, Izzy,” Alec answers. “Well, apart from Jace.”

“I maintain,” she says, “That you are my best older brother ever. And Jace is my best older _stepbrother_ ever. But I need some space to explore on my own now, Alec. Okay? I really appreciate the chaperone today but I think I’m gonna be fine for the rest of the afternoon here by myself…plus...I was looking through this thing.”

Izzy removes her hands from Alec’s shoulders and reaches into the back pocket of her tight leather pants for the little stapled _Welcome Week_ brochure they were handed earlier, as they got to the park's eastern boundary, where the lunchtime stalls are set up.

"Later on this afternoon, there’s a silent disco at the west end of the park and I really wanna go there, and see if I can pick up," she says, biting softly on her lower lip while she says it, hardly able to hide her smile. "There are so many hot people here, have you noticed?” She starts to thumb through the brochure and thrusts a colorful page up into Alec’s face. “See? Seriously, this has to be the hottest student activities board in this whole freaking country. Look at them all, for fuck's sake. They're gorgeous!”

“You really do have a one-track mind, don’t you?” he says, but Izzy just keeps on grinning. He takes the brochure but doesn’t look at it too closely just yet, still more concerned about his sister. But he finally sighs and says, “Alright…but you listen to me now, Izzy, okay? If you get into any trouble-“

“Alec, I’m gonna be fine! I’ll see you later!”

She turns and hurries off and he watches her disappear between the folds of the crowd of students. Unsure of what to do with himself now his only excuse for being here just ditched him.

Alec fusses awkwardly for a moment with the brochure, still also holding the flyer. He looks down at the brochure page she opened up for him, just for something to do while his brain tries to sift through the panic he can feel rising, and his eyes catch on one picture which stands out on this page from the rest. 

It’s dark where the others are bright and colorful. Taken in a dimly-lit space perhaps, maybe a nightclub. A guy looks out from the frame at Alec. His eyes are dark brown and carefully rimmed by kohl liner. And the guy isn’t smiling but there’s something in those adorned eyes that is exactly like how a smile makes Alec feel.

For a short time, Alec just stands there, staring. Forgetting all about his sister. And all about being a good older brother. Forgetting all about sour snakes and belly aches and Europe. Religious art and Muslims and pro-Islamic events his parents would likely be horrified by if they knew he or Izzy were being made aware of them, let alone so openly invited to.

Just standing there staring at the picture of the guy. Wondering who he is. And where.


	2. Jeopardy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus and Raphael play Jeopardy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the second prompt on my Bingo card: too political. Wholly inspired by the citation of censorship linked to this prompt from the event list provided, so thank you mods for doing that, very helpful!
> 
> (and jesus christ i completely confused myself writing the answers and questions and may have screwed the way the game is meant to be played up but hopefully this all just makes sense XD)

“You’re supposed to be wearing that,” Raphael says to Magnus. 

It’s not the first _Welcome Week_ the pair have spent like this - unsure if they’re friends or not, yet on the same side and with a shared goal - although it is the first one in several years, and they hadn’t both been behind a trestle table then. 

Magnus had still been volunteering his services back then though, having already established himself as an independent but socially-aware student at NYU who wanted to help when it suited him; about to commence his sixth semester of a Social Entrepreneurship degree. But Raphael had still been very green; only a first-year, newly enrolling. And as broken-looking as Magnus would expect of a soft neo-goth on a School of the Arts scholarship.

He’d seemed just as damaged then as he still does now; Raphael’s experience of the unfortunate rite of passage that most just referred to benignly as ‘high school’ seemed something akin to his own, so Magnus understood what that was like. To live with the legacy of trauma. They’d bonded over that, on that first day they’d met; Raphael’s first at college. He’d been wandering around looking alienated, and terribly pissed-off about it. And Magnus had noticed - noticed him - and handed him a flyer. 

Now Raphael has come so far he works for the student activities board; Magnus was pleased when Raphael told him that. When he’d sought out Magnus, several weeks ago, and asked him to donate his time here again. Something had just felt right about agreeing. And he hadn’t minded at all his picture being taken for the promotional brochure Raphael said he was co-designing for the event. Something had also felt right about agreeing to that too.

“You’re supposed to be doing many things, Raphael, but I’m not criticizing you for doing a very grand sum-total of none of them,” Magnus replies. “If you wish to wear it, well that is your choice. But to be honest, those aprons are as flattering as three months spent in social isolation during a pandemic, and I wouldn’t like to be caught dead in one. And I’m surprised at you, entertaining the odds of that happening.” 

He gives him an appalled once-over. Some things have solidified but not many have changed about Raphael.

“Do you still listen to _Nine Inch Nails_?” Magnus asks him, trying to perk him up a bit, as far as a brooder who wouldn’t say no to an actual vampire can be perked up. 

To his pleasure though, Raphael’s eyes do gleam a little at the mention of a band Magnus remembers as being one of the boi’s favorites. And he begins to settle back down; appearing to shrug off the chip on his shoulder he’s apparently developed over the fact Magnus is so flagrantly flouting the guidelines for volunteers at _Welcome Week_. 

They both go back to what they were doing before Raphael's berating of Magnus began. Which is to say sprucing the Queer Occult Society’s stall, set up on the park’s eastern boundary; Magnus using the apron as a duster to remove lint from around the edges of their displays laid out on the trestle table, and Raphael replenishing their stock of free badges, zines, key-chains, and stickers.

“Yes,” Raphael answers. “I do still listen to them. Why?”

“We are only thirty minutes into this supervision,” Magnus answers. “And, well, I am here for _Jeopardy_ on that topic. If you are?”

“What’s the wager?” Raphael asks. 

“Payment is only in beverages that I get to buy for you.”

“Would I expect anything less?”

“You certainly shouldn’t,” Magnus replies, and he is almost sure he hears the faintest trace of a derisive snort at that remark from Raphael. But that little sound of amusement from him is both pleasing and reassuring. 

“You _socialites_ may be able to stomach the venues here, but I can’t,” Raphael bristles. “So I’m not sure I can play.”

“Oh _god_ no, not a drink from a _campus_ bar,” Magnus says, feigning most of his horror but also meaning some of it very sincerely. Then he levels with Raphael. “I run a little venture. A different one to the one you’ve been to. And you’d always be welcome there too but you are assuming you’ll win. This is highly presumptuous of you, Raphael.”

“Try me,” he challenges, still eyeing Magnus with the same interested gleam in his eyes. “Category is _Bands Who Formed In The Nineteen Eighties_ and I choose _Cocktails With You Somewhere Tolerable_ as the wager.”

“Ah,” Magnus smiles, and then he adds slyly, “you know, you’re not being obvious at all by the way…okay, _let’s play Jeopardy!_ The answers are... _The Cure, The Slits, Nine Inch Nails._ What is the question, Raphael?”

_“Who are Nine Inch Nails?”_

“Correct!” Magnus says, clapping his hands together in applause. “You know, though, I think it really should be _is_ rather than _are._.. _Who is Nine Inch Nails?_ Singular not plural.”

“Doesn’t matter, I still got it right.”

“You don’t make friends with grammar,” Magnus says. “Okay, my turn. The category remains _Bands From The Nineteen Eighties_ …wager also remains the same… _go_.”

“The answer is _Nine Inch Nails_. That’s all.”

Magnus snorts. “ _Who canceled an MTV appearance in 2005 because MTV said they were too political?_ There.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, please don’t make me say all that again, Raphael!”

“No, I mean _huh_ as in...is that really true?”

“What sort of fan are you?” Magnus asks, playfully. “You don’t know that? Everybody knows that, don’t they? I thought this was common knowledge.”

“I’m not as old as you.”

“Ouch…I am not that much older than you, Raphael.”

“Did _Nine Inch Nails_ really do that?”

“Yes,” Magnus says, returning to the dusting but looking around for a thing to do next because the activity's beginning to bore him, although the conversation is passing the time. “But MTV was reluctant to air the song at all.”

“Which song was it?” Raphael asks.

“ _The Hand That Feeds_.”

Raphael frowns.

“It does have quite political lyrics,” Magnus offers.

Raphael's frown deepens. “Religious, maybe…but political?”

“You’re right,” Magnus muses. “There are clear religious connotations…but I do also think that if some of those lyrics were coupled with images of a president waging war on a country whose government was not responsible for starting one, or at least not the one they were claiming it was responsible for starting…the war on Iraq was a complete sham war…because they wanted to put a picture of George W Bush up as a backdrop, while they performed the song, see...well then, that could be deemed political...and for an entertainment channel like MTV…with links no doubt to people who do probably fund the campaigns of Republicans…it would be a risky maneuver…even if they did agree with the sentiment the band was trying to get across…however passively…I mean they could have been more…aggressive…about it…or…direct...”

He trails off. In the background Raphael is speaking. Magnus might be nodding faintly. Or he might be shaking his head, he’s not quite sure. The apron may or may not also still be held in his hand. He may or may not even still be standing here, behind the trestle table at _Welcome Week_. Not doing entirely what he’s meant to. But noticing something again. Someone. A tall man neatly-dressed in dark clothes standing near a shorter woman with long dark hair. Her hands on his shoulders and her bare arms covered in unusual tattoos. And a similar tattoo on the tall man’s neck, Magnus notices too. Now she’s left him alone and he’s turned around. And his and Magnus' eyes are meeting for the very first time.


	3. Enamel Pin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec meets Magnus and Raphael.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the third prompt on my Bingo card: accurate depictions of ableism.
> 
> Trigger warning / sensitive content warning on this chapter for ableist and homophobic language intended as slurs.
> 
> Writing this stirred up some not great feelings for me in places. If that happens to you and you want to chat my DMs are always open.

“Hey! Didn’t you hear what I said? Don’t just walk away from me, retard, like nothing just happened…hey! Come back here! I’m talking to you and you know it!”

The words have been filtering through the ambient sounds of _Welcome Week_ that have deadened around Alec since his eyes somehow landed on where they just have. On who they just have. And as Alec’s eyes landed there - on his first real sight of him - everything around Alec seemed to slow down. As though something real had hit him hard and winded him; stopped everything in the world that Alec had ever known was stoppable. Until all that was left that could keep on going - that needed to - was just this real sight, continuing somehow before him; the sight of the guy from the brochure. A sight he was having a whole lot of trouble believing.

But now a real impact - one that literally nearly knocks Alec off his feet - brings everything in the world crashing back. It's all moving again as a girl wearing yellow crashes to the ground, halfway between Alec and the guy from the brochure, breaking their lines of sight - she must have been the real impact - just before another girl appears, wearing red. She must be the words.

“Apologize for knocking into me, spaz,” she says, standing over the girl in yellow, still right in front of Alec, within a couple of arm’s reach. “Where are your manners? You don't just knock into people without apologizing, it’s very rude. Don’t you know that?”

“Hey!” Alec says, taking two quick steps forwards to reach her. Then reaching out towards her arm. Because whoever she is, she seems to be advancing on the girl in yellow on the ground, and that alarms Alec, as much as her words. Maybe more. He closes his hand around her bicep. And as soon as he does, the girl in red spins around, and starts yelling at Alec too.

“Don’t you touch my arm! You’re a fucking predator. Hey, over here! This guy’s a predator!”

“Whoa!” Alec says, letting her go. “I’m not a predator! You…just quit talking to her like that, alright?”

“This is none of your fucking business. Stay out of it, asshole.”

“Don’t call people things like that,” Alec says. “Don’t use words like that. It’s not okay.”

“Who the fuck are you, the police? Huh? Fag.”

“Listen” - Alec doesn’t touch the girl in red this time, but he does point a finger at her while extending his other arm backward. Shielding the girl in yellow, who is still fallen down on the ground - “I think it would be best if you just leave. Get out of here. Because if you don’t-”

“If I don’t...what? What are you gonna do to me, huh? A citizen’s arrest? Yeah, I’d like to see that...fuck you…fuck the both of you...”

“Are you okay?” Alec asks the girl in yellow, now the one in red is walking away, like nothing just happened. The crowd around them is acting like that too. Alec’s heart is beating so fast by now, he feels dizzy. His vision is tunneling. She’d called him a _fag._ Hecrouches down in the grass of the park, places one hand on the ground to steady himself. And then he looks into the eyes of the girl in yellow. They’re wide. She’s breathing hard. She nods. “Are you hurt?” he adds. “Want a hand with getting up?”

“No,” she says. The girl in yellow gets to her feet by herself. Alec stands up too, wondering whether he should say something else. She turns away, as though to go. But then she turns around. “Thanks,” she says. “Not many people do that, so…see ya.” She lowers her head and runs away and Alec stares after her. Wondering now if he did something wrong.

“It’s an unusual tattoo you have there on your neck,” a new voice sounds from nearby. Alec looks towards it.

The rest of the world crashes to a halt again. He can’t breathe. And as though the guy from the brochure, to whom the voice belongs, knows exactly how that feels - like maybe words don't even need to exist anymore, and why would they, when all there could be is just this sight, that has to be real; he’s so close now, they could reach out and touch - the guy asks Alec a question. And the world crashes back to life.

“Does it hurt to get tattooed on your neck? I’ve sometimes wondered.”

“Ah…um…a little...yes,” Alec stutters. And then he looks down at the trestle table between them. Fixates for a moment on the corner of a sticker. And next to that a curved edge of something that catches the light. The girl in red’s words haunt his head. “My parents weren’t pleased,” Alec adds.

He senses that the guy from the brochure still has his eyes on him. He starts to consider walking away, just like the girl in red had done. Maybe he could run away, just like the girl in yellow. But then the guy starts speaking to Alec again. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a tattoo quite like that one before…but it does remind me of things I’ve seen before in Western Europe.”

Alec looks up. “I got it in Europe…my sister and my stepbrother and I all did gap years there. Not all at the same time but…well, my parents sure did approve of us touring Europe. Even if they didn’t approve of the way we came back.”

The guy from the brochure gives Alec not a smile as such. It’s not a movement large enough to be quite called that but there’s something in his face that softens for the edge of Alec’s story. And just like when Izzy first handed him his picture, and Alec looked at that and noticed the way his eyes made him feel, Alec feels that thing again. Like a closed flower in the first ray of light after days of nothing but heavy rain. He forgets all about his parents for a moment - all about the world as he’s ever known it - and smiles. He can’t help it. He can’t stop it.

“Does it mean something?” the guy asks. “I’m assuming it’s a rune. It reminds me of the _Elder Futhark_ alphabet a little. But like I said it’s not a mark I think I’ve ever seen before.“

“Well” - Alec feels his cheeks warm - “Actually…my sister has this friend. They met in high school, she’s doing, like...Art here? Something like that-”

“Art History and Visual Culture?”

Alec turns to notice another guy, slightly shorter than the guy from the brochure, but not by very much. His hair is almost as dark but less styled. He’s not wearing eyeliner. He is wearing the same kind of apron the guy from the Muslim Student Society had on though, and it strikes Alec that the brochure guy isn’t wearing one of those at all. Even though they both appear to be working here today in some capacity.

“Ah, yeah, maybe,” Alec says, nodding to the apron guy. “Anyway, she started drawing these fanarts...different fandoms...and then she did some oh-sees.”

“Oh-sees?” the brochure guy asks. 

“Original characters,” the other guy says.

Alec nods towards him again. “She’s pretty into runes and she drew these ones of her own for those. Symbols for the characters’ identities. All based on her friends and people she knew. And she did some based on my sister and little brother. And on my stepbrother. And she did one based on me…that’s what this is from.” Alec touches his neck. “She said this rune means _deflect_ when I asked…at first, I wondered if that was offensive, I don’t think I deflect things…or maybe I do a bit, I guess…but then I thought to _deflect_ is like...not to _block_ as such, but…ah, this sounds so dumb, I’m sorry.”

“Not at all,” the brochure guy murmurs. “You have a lovely way of telling things. And I have a lovely way of listening. Don’t I, Raphael?”

The apron guy - _Raphael_ \- just shrugs. 

Alec hesitates. “I’ve never said it aloud before.”

“Well,” the guy from the brochure sighs but it's not a sound of impatience, it's something else, “You certainly don’t have to say it aloud now...or share anything at all you don't want to with us… I’m _Magnus_ by the way…Magnus _Bane_...whatever you wish to keep to yourself for now, you are more than entitled to.”

“It’s like a shield,” Alec murmurs. “It strengthens me. I...ah, I should probably go, I have some things I should…sign up for, you know? It’s _Welcome Week_ , after all.”

“Of course,” Magnus says. “But before you do...because you have just saved us from an extraordinarily unfortunate situation just now, and we are grateful. Thank you, beautiful…whoever you are.”

“ _Alec_ ,” Alec says. “Well, it’s _Alexander_ , actually. But most people just call me _Alec_.” 

“Understand that I am not most people, Alexander,” Magnus says, holding something out now, over the trestle table, towards him, “And please accept this.”

It’s only small. Alec reaches out for it to meet the guy’s hand - Magnus' hand - halfway, and accept the gift. It’s a small enamel pin, of a little _chibi_ cupid, with light skin, and brown hair and eyes, winking out from the metal at Alec. His cherub wings are rainbow and he holds an archer’s bow in one hand. In his other, he preps an arrow on the end of which is not a flint, but a love heart. Alec looks up from the pin at Magnus.

“Cute,” he murmurs. “How much?”

“Oh,” Magnus answers. “I am entirely free, Alexander.” 

Alec just smiles back stupidly at him for a minute, still holding the colorful little angel in his fingers. 

“Would you like some help putting it on?” Magnus asks. 

“Oh, no...that’s okay...I’ll, um…I’ll put this on later,” he says, tucking it away inside the left-hand pocket of his shirt. The one above his heart.

“Sure,” Magnus answers. He starts dusting the trestle table with what looks to be one of the _Welcome Week_ aprons. “Well, perhaps just take one of our flyers as well, then.” He nods at Raphael, who hands Alec one. “You can tuck that away too. Until you need it.” 

“What do you mean by that?” 

“You’ll see,” Magnus says, winking like the angel on the pin.


	4. Camille

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three weeks have elapsed since Welcome Week and two people Magnus hasn’t seen in a little while show up at his most popular student-friendly establishment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the fourth prompt on my Bingo card: kinky sex.
> 
> Chapter contains an explicit discussion of double penetration and references to anal sex.
> 
> Also, and this is just my take on it, but I don't really love the home-wrecking vibe that the TV show gives me about Camille so I just wanted to flesh her out a bit more in the way I've tried to include her in this chapter.

“A what?”

“A lavender.”

“Yeah, that’s what I thought you said. But I don’t understand how a kind of herb-”

“It’s not a kind of herb. It’s a kind of dildo.”

“Oh, _right..._ ”

“A double-ender. So a girl can put it in both holes at once.”

“So, she did that to you? Or you did that to her?”

The woman groans at the man sitting next to her, at the bar inside Magnus’ flagship venue: the High Warlock of Brooklyn. 

Magnus had tried hard not to eavesdrop on their conversation at first, but they weren’t exactly keeping their voices low. Students coming in with the complimentary drink coupons that had been attached to the flyers he and Raphael had given out three weeks ago at NYU tended not to do that. And Magnus was glad for it, frankly. It meant they felt comfortable, which pleased him to realize; it was _why_ they came in here and didn’t just go to a campus bar. This kind of ambiance made the trip from Lower Manhattan worth it.

“Dude, that's what I'm trying to tell you,” the woman is saying now. “Because it was a lavender...well, you can’t really not use any lube with those because they’re all about _double dicking_ , okay? Do you get what I’m saying? So, no matter how wet you get you still have to use at least a little bit because half of it’s going in your ass, and that’s not wet, alright? I can’t believe I’m having to explain this to you, honestly…don’t you know anything about anal sex? You’re a guy! I thought all guys knew about anal sex, don’t you all watch porn? That’s full of anal-”

“All guys don’t watch porn, that's a stereotype. Like how the kind of sex they have in porn is not really an accurate depiction of how people actually have sex, you know? Especially anal sex. Like how they're always so ready and they just go right on in and start fucking the hell out of each other, without any prep. Porn is full of a lot of very unrealistic depictions of sex.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well everybody is always very…I don’t know, clean? That's another thing that's not very realistic. And hairless, everybody is always very hairless.”

“I’ve seen plenty of hairy guys in the porn I watch.”

“I guess it depends on what you watch then. They almost _always_ seem to be doing something kinky, though...and all guys _don’t_ like anal, that’s another-”

“A lotta guys watch porn,” she stresses. “That’s how they get educated about sex, isn’t it? Guys don’t pay attention to sex ed in school, so they watch porn.”

“Careful...”

“Alright, alright,” she says. “But are you getting the picture now?”

“Yeah.”

“So, she didn’t have any lube so we didn’t use her lavender. We just ended up talking about using it, which was pretty hot too…and we might use it next time, if there is a next time. She hasn’t even messaged me back yet, can you believe that? Like, I think I’m a decent person, I deserve a message back, don’t I? You would message me back. Maybe you and me should have sex…”

Magnus raises his eyebrows at the pair of them in silence and turns to stroll back down the long bar again, rubbing an already sparkling shot glass with a soft cloth as he goes. As he moves, another voice catches his ear. Not the brash voice of a student but the soft purr of one who knows him very well. Although it hasn’t purred for Magnus in a little while, which is typical; she seems to have a sixth sense for new semesters of college students coming in here to the Warlock for the first time with coupons.

“Hello, kitten.”

Magnus sighs. “Camille,” he breathes, looking across the bar at her settling down on a barstool and placing her chin in her hands to look back at him, still polishing the glass with the cloth. “What brings you here? Surely not the fresh meat.”

“You have always looked good in sarcasm.”

“Perhaps it’s the kinky sex they seem to be almost having…I assume you were also eavesdropping?”

“Darling, you know me too well.”

“How are you?” Magnus asks her. “Doing okay?”

“I do _very_ well, as you know,” Camille says. “And how have you been? Getting some? I hope you’ve been getting the lion's share, kitten.”

Magnus feels a warmth that wants to bloom as a blush in his cheeks, because he hasn’t been getting a morsel. And he hasn’t been doing that for an unprecedented amount of time. But he doesn’t wish to let on about that to Camille. He’s wary. She broke his heart in high school, after all. One doesn’t ever forget about that.

“My needs are…being met,” Magnus lies, setting down the glass and the cloth on the bar.

She reaches out to take his hands. Then she begins to stroke across his knuckles with her thumbs. “I miss you,” she murmurs.

“Camille,” he murmurs back, “You know you really don’t. We go through this every time…you chose to leave me. It wasn’t the other way around.”

He wants to pay some attention to her. She looks a little wounded. He does very well remember the way Camille looks when she is wounded. It’s a look that tugs on his better instincts; ones that have always suggested to Magnus that in the very distant past, someone hurt Camille too. Although she has never said anything to Magnus about that.

But movement behind her catches his eye then - a lone tall figure has entered the bar, one who again is stopping his heart for a hot, if inconvenient, second - and, their reverie broken, Magnus regrets what happens next, knowing before it does that it will. His hands flex and tense inside Camille's fingers. The regular rise and fall of his chest seems to pause mid-breath. He takes in the whole sight of the beautiful man who’d introduced himself as _Alec_ on that day way back during _Welcome Week_ ; standing here now, behind Camille, in the shadowy depths beyond the bar. His face full of surprise. Eyes wide, lips parted. And a coupon held in one hand. 

“He's a pretty boy…are you fucking him yet?”

Magnus pulls his hands away. Camille pouts and Alec looks mortified.

“You know I’m only teasing you, kitten,” she says, reaching out for his hands again, returning her attention to Magnus. As Alec drops his eyes and lowers his head. And it pains Magnus to watch him leave the bar looking like that. “There was a time you liked me to tease you.”

“Yes, there _was_ ,” Magnus says to her, firmly. “But that is over, Camille. We have talked about this.” He huffs, feeling frustrated. And torn. “Don’t you have something better to do? Are you really this bored today? Why are you really here, what’s wrong? Come out and say it and stop playing havoc with my…well…please?”

“I need a job,” she admits.

“Oh, you don’t need a job at all,” Magnus tuts. “You are so well supported, Camille-”

“I don’t need a job for _money_ , Magnus…I need a job for _sanity_.”

He sighs. “I suppose I could find you a job. I do need a booker again, it’s getting too much for me to chase down agents. Now a semester’s restarted.”

“I would do booking for you,” she agrees, perking up. “There would, of course, be one condition though.”

Magnus gives her a look. “You never did come cheap.”

“Go after him,” Camille says quietly, nodding towards the narrow entrance doors. “And…my efforts are never malicious, Magnus…I just-”

“We’re not involved,” he says. “I’ve met him only once before.”

Camille reaches out for his hands again. Magnus lets her take them. Unsure now who’s more soothed by this, but sure her reasons for doing it this time are changed from why he suspects she did it before.

“If I know anything about you, kitten," she says, "It's that your type is a thing I could write books on in my sleep...there are epic stories inside me about it...we all yearn for what we are not. I wish I believed in soul mates, I really do...I wish I could entertain whimsy...but, Magnus, you know as well as me, he’s that type...yours. Please don’t let him wait too long for you to realize this too.”


	5. Jace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On his way home from the Warlock, Alec meets up with Jace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the fifth prompt on my Bingo card: inaccurate Cuba.
> 
> This chapter contains racial stereotyping, casual racism, references to fictional violence, and references to a fictional hate crime.
> 
> I needed some help with this one and the citation named ‘does not depict an accurate life in Cuba’ as the ban reason. I am not a citizen of Cuba, nor have I been to Cuba. So I decided to use my own lack of education as the impetus for this chapter and give it to Alec as an example of racial stereotyping / casual racism. 
> 
> ((Also I am not a lawyer nor have I studied Law and let alone Law in Cuba so I have tried to address that lack of education too!))
> 
> Final thing is I’ve been saving Jace‘s introduction to this story for something special-ish so I hope I’ve used him okay here. Hope you enjoy the read and thanks once again for checking out this tricky fic!

“Hey, Alec…you got a flat or something? I got a patch in here somewhere, hang on...”

Jace transfers weight to his right pedal and swings his left leg over the seat and rear wheel of his bike while it’s still moving. Alec has always admired the way he can dismount a bike like that, so effortlessly; for the life in him, Alec’s never been able to make it look even half as graceful as Jace always does. 

“It’s not a flat tyre,” Alec says, as Jace shrugs off one of the straps on his backpack. “I just felt like walking.”

Jace frowns. “You’re…you’re walking west. Why are you walking west?”

Alec’s heart starts to beat a little faster as his brain starts to whir its way to explaining the fact that he should really be walking east right now, if he were going back home from NYU, like he should be. Rather than going back home from the bar in Brooklyn proper that he’s just stupidly been all the way out to. A lot further east than 3rd Street.

“Alec?” his stepbrother asks, because Alec - who was already only walking slowly - has come to a complete stop by now and still not answered Jace’s question. And there’s only one reason why Alec stops responding to Jace, his best friend. “Hey…are you okay?”

“Not really,” Alec answers. “I don’t suppose you wanna go sit in the park for a bit? I don’t really feel like going home just yet.”

“Sure,” Jace says. “Park sounds good. It’s still a really nice afternoon…it would be nice to watch the sunset there, maybe?”

“Yeah,” Alec says. “It would be nice to do that.”

They turn around and walk back together along the street to the edge of Prospect Park. Alec leads them across the grass for long enough to start to veil most of the sounds of the traffic. And he dumps his bike and flops to the ground, and lays down on his back and looks up at the sky. It’s early fall, so although it’s getting to dinner time, the sky is still light and there’s no trace yet of the twilight. And the grass still smells of the sun’s light on it. Although the shadows in the park are growing longer and the sun will no doubt go down soon.

“So, something happened today, huh?” Jace suggests, lying down nearby to Alec on the ground, but facing the other way so that the pair of them can lie with their eyes in line, but top and tail. As you might do if you were sharing a bed with a friend who you wanted to stay platonic with. “You got a bad grade back or something?”

Alec gives Jace a little smile. “It’s crazy how you just know things like that.”

“You know I can always figure you out, always have been able to do that,” Jace says, giving Alec a half-smile back. “What subject was it? Wait…I bet it was Corporate Tax, that’s the only one I can imagine it could be.”

“I don’t do that one anymore, remember? Switched to International.”

“Oh yeah…you're so smart Alec, I fail everything. You get one fail in a fucking numbers subject...but listen, you’re gonna be an amazing lawyer some day pretty soon. I just know it.”

“It wasn’t a fail,” Alec says. “It wasn’t even a bad grade really. It was just a comment.”

“Okay,” Jace says. “So, what was the comment?”

Alec sighs. He can still see it written in his head, as though he had an eidetic memory. “ _Inaccurate Cuba_.”

“What?”

“ _Inaccurate Cuba_ ,” Alec repeats. 

“Well, what the fuck does that mean?”

Alec can’t help but snort through his nose. “The assignment was a creative response. One of those reverse things where you’re writing the tail end as though you’re setting the assignment for somebody else to do, you know what I mean?”

Jace groans. “Man, I hate those...what the fuck is wrong with lecturers? Why do they make us do that shit?”

“I think it’s meant to be, like, a higher-order thinking thing…anyway, so I wrote a legal case study about this guy I thought might live in Cuba...urgh, Jace, this is so bad, really...”

“Go on, just get it off your chest, man.”

Alec grimaces. “The defendant in the case study was gay. A student. And he was a citizen of Cuba, living in Havana. And he liked to smoke cigars and wear guayaberas...because one of the pieces of evidence I think somebody could use would be nicotine on the clothing of the accused. Or like, if forensics were to swab inside scratch marks on the accused, they could get the defendant’s brand and match it, you know? Or there might be a bloodstain on the guayabera he was wearing during the attack. Because in the case study, the defendant’s been beaten by a gang, targeted and, you know, is needing a lawyer to defend himself…but his parents live in Miami and they don’t really support their son anyway, and wouldn’t help him pay for a lawyer. So...well, I wrote that he would seek out assistance from Cuban legal aid because he would need that if he couldn’t pay for representation. And…well, I totally forgot that there are no private attorneys in Cuba, really...I don’t know how I forgot that, maybe it is because I switched and I need to catch up...I got a lot to read up on...everybody just kind of gets represented there, no matter what they earn. And also I completely racially stereotyped this person, and they wrote that too in the feedback…I guess I was just imagining the guy…I got carried away…and I just really fucked it up, Jace...I _really_ really fucked it up.”

“Alec, do you know any Cubans?”

“No,” he admits. “But it had to be a case study for an International Law assignment. So I had to locate it somewhere.”

“Well, had you thought of maybe not writing from the perspective of Cubans? Maybe just, you know...writing from the perspective of _Americans in_ Cuba?”

“I just wanted to write about that one guy…I guess I could just see him in my head, and…I don’t know…it’s a stupid thing to get upset about-”

“It’s not a stupid thing, Alec…and…well, you touch on some things. Important things…casual racism is sometimes really hard to talk about constructively…address, you know? We do it and we don’t even think about it…until someone points it out to us…and it’s important that they do but it doesn’t mean we’re a total failure or anything. It means we can do something, and get better at something. Be more aware of what we’re doing. Be better. Be better to each other…you know?” 

Jace reaches out and, very gently, he starts to trace around the tips of Alec’s curled fingers as they lie side by side on the grass in the late afternoon, not too far from home. It’s such a nice feeling, Alec loves the way Jace does this. He watches the way it makes his hand open up. Makes his fingers even more supple and just completely compliant to whatever Jace’s fingers seem to want them to do next. It’s the most natural feeling Alec thinks he could ever have. The instinct to let Jace just physically relax him like this. And make him feel like nothing could ever be so bad that it couldn’t be shared with Jace. Because Alec trusts him this much.

He sighs. “Jace?”

“Yeah?”

He reaches inside the pocket he stuffed the coupon into earlier, when he was still inside the bar, before Jace found him wandering sadly home.

“There was this one other thing that happened today…”


	6. Lychee Liqueur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec returns to the Warlock with Jace, and Magnus grows a little bit jealous.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the sixth prompt on my Bingo card: women as "whores".
> 
> I just had a whole lot of fun with them here, I hope you enjoy it ;)

At first, Magnus thinks that he is just weary; it’s been a difficult week and Camille's unexpected arrival earlier had not helped it get any easier. And then of course there’d been Alec turning up. And now, there is this guy.

“We all have bad days,” Magnus says, as patiently as possible to the man he suspects he shouldn’t really be pouring another pint for, but is; he still seems lucid enough to drink it but his tongue is becoming looser and his language is toeing the kind that makes Magnus start to make grim eyes at his bouncer.

So, at first, Magnus just blinks to clear his vision of the pair of tall silhouettes he seems to be seeing, entering the bar, as he accepts payment for the beer he’s just poured, but only one ear is on the conversation now. And both eyes are glued to the silhouettes. The first belongs to a handsome blond with a hero’s jaw who Magnus has never seen before in his life. And the second - now he can feel his heart in his mouth again, he knows it for sure - belongs to Alec. He’s returned.

“Women are all the same…”

Magnus' heart drops below the dark parquet-wood floor. Alec hasn’t just _returned_ , he’s returned with _someone_. A very pretty someone. Magnus feels his brow furrow. Is this payback? They look cozy. They have seated themselves in the little nook below the stairs leading to the upper floors of the Warlock; a spot which lovers usually choose to snug in. It's an area Magnus specifically designed for that purpose, with a generous and pillowy-soft maroon-colored sofa nestled into the annex, and a little shaded lamp on one of the exposed wall struts that glows warm and intimate; a quiet place reserved for whispering sweet nothings and kissing in semi-darkness. The furrow in Magnus’ brow deepens.

“Chicks are only after one thing…” 

He notices a tattoo on the forearm of the blond. It’s similar to the one on Alec’s neck, and on the woman with the long dark hair who he was with that day at _Welcome Week_ , when he and Alec had first met each other briefly. Magnus remembers then what Alec said about a stepbrother, as well as a sister, who the woman must’ve been. But he also notices the way Alec looks at this man. The way Alec smiles at him and how soft his expressions are as he listens to whatever it is the blond is saying intensely to him. And Alec seems to be doing a lot of that - listening - which is interesting to Magnus because he remembers the way Alec talked so much when they conversed at NYU back on that first day; Alec doesn’t seem anywhere near as nervous now as he had then.

“And once they get it, they just leave you…”

And the final thing Magnus notices about the pair of men is the way they keep touching fingers. The way Alec seems to reach out for the blond’s so often. Not always receiving their attention back but sometimes - when he can’t dodge them - the blond does tickle Alec’s fingertips. And every time he does, Magnus feels the most terrible pang of envy.

“Cunts are all a bunch of fucking whores.”

And then the feeling is gone and a very different pain arrives, one that doesn’t surprise him at all; he probably should have predicted this. Might’ve if he wasn’t so weary.

“I’m afraid,” Magnus sighs, as the man’s words sting his ears like something he’s just had cut off without sufficient local anesthetic, “that I am going to have to ask you to either dramatically alter your vocabulary, sir, or leave these premises.”

“Huh?”

“Your language is not acceptable and I think that you have also had an overly-sufficient amount of alcohol to drink this evening.”

“I’m a paying customer. You can't ask me to leave. And I’ll say whatever I want. This is America.”

“Yes it is and that is why expressions overheard here by the management, which border on suggesting hate speech, are not tolerated. And we also have a policy about-”

“You,” the man says, leaning in as Magnus leans back while raising his hand and clicking his fingers in an effort to rouse the attention of the bouncer, who sees the gesture and starts to move quickly, as quickly as the man’s temper seems to be rising up for him, “Will tolerate what I have to say because like I said to you before-”

“Is there a problem?” But it’s Alec who gets there first. “Magnus? Is this guy bothering you?”

“I was just asking this gentleman to leave,” he breathes. 

And he knew it already - how tall Alec is - but for some reason, Magnus has never noted until just now how broad Alec is too, across the shoulders; he has squared them like a bird might spread its wings in aggression. And yet Alec is not aggressive now at all. Nothing like the drunk misogynist. And for a minute Magnus just stares at how beautiful he looks like that; just protective. And protective of him.

“Well, you heard him,” Alec says. “You’ve been asked to leave so you better do it.”

“Come on, buddy,” the bouncer growls, sounding anything but like this guy’s buddy as he hooks him roughly beneath one arm and escorts him to the door.

“I believe,” Magnus says to Alec, a few moments later once the scene has cleared, and once his heart has returned to a more acceptable level of thumping in his ears, “That is the second time now you have come to my rescue, Alexander. Thank you.” 

Alec blushes. “Ah, I was just…you know…doing what anyone would do, really.”

“You are modest as well as brave,” Magnus comments, enjoying the way Alec’s cheeks continue to warm up. And the way, the longer Magnus looks at them, his eyes also seem to glow up. “Could I perhaps offer you a drink on the house as a show of my...our _..._ gratitude?”

“Oh, you don’t need to do that,” Alec smiles, rummaging inside a pocket in the back of his jeans. “I have this.” He pulls out his free drink coupon. “Sorry that it’s…well, it’s a little bit scrunched up by now.” 

He puts the small slip of paper down on the bar and tries to smooth it out. The sight is so endearing Magnus almost forgets where he is, and what he’s just seen. But it’s not quite _that_ endearing.

“I see you have returned with someone,” Magnus fishes. “Perhaps I could make it a pair of drinks then. And the second one is free for your friend. What does he drink?”

“Jace?” Alec asks. “Oh, he just drinks single malt.”

“ _Jace,”_ Magnus repeats. “Right…so, rocks?”

“Straight.”

Magnus notes it. “And for you?”

“Oh, um” - he pauses and Magnus glances up as he pours the shot of whiskey for Jace - “Well, I don’t know exactly…I don’t usually drink actually, so I guess I don’t really have a regular...thing…drink…thing…sorry, I’m…ah!” He lets go of an awkward sound that might be a laugh; something halfway between that and a cry of frustration. “I don’t know why I’m so nervous all of a sudden.”

Magnus smiles, still eyeing him. “It’s you who should be forgiving me. I have falsely assumed that you drink. We have plenty of virgin cocktails here.”

The flush in his cheeks deepens. And it makes Alec’s mouth so pink then that Magnus almost drops the shot he’s lifting up from the counter and onto the bar, as he tries to still his pulse at that sight, and the insight it’s just given him into Alec. And then, afraid his nerves might now take Alec away from him, and back out into the world, and away from Magnus for a second time this evening - or worse, back within the reach of Jace too soon - Magnus adds quickly, “I didn’t mean to imply-”

“I drink it sometimes,” Alec says. “Just usually only get an apple juice though, when Jace orders whiskey…dark liquor’s pretty hard and I’m not a huge fan of beer. To be honest.” 

“Your honesty is both charming and appreciated.”

“Probably completely offensive to a bartender though, huh?” he chuckles, looking bashful again. “To admit to a thing like that…preferring juice to hard liquor.”

“Not at all,” Magnus reassures. “And anyway, Alexander, I am not _just_ a bartender. You are looking at the _High Warlock of Brooklyn_.”

“Owner?”

“No,” Magnus grins and repeats, “ _High Warlock_.”

Alec grins back. “So, okay… _High Warlock_ …is there something hard on your menu that you would recommend for a guy who mostly just likes apple juice?”

Magnus raises his eyebrows. Yes, there certainly is. “There is a drink I’ve been enjoying in private lately. A little spin on a Lychee Martini.”

He turns and pulls down first a bottle of vodka and then a tall slim one that’s deeply colored rose from the shelves behind him, stacked with bottles of all shapes and colors, as though they were potions. Into a shaker, he measures three shots of each and then begins to add several other things before mixing then lining up not one but two stemmed glasses. 

“The apple juice in this,” he begins to explain while carefully pouring out the first measure, “Is crisp alone. But the lychee liqueur rounds it off just enough to make the aftertaste sweet, but not too sweet…some of these brands have a vanilla note in them but this one has just a faint trace of roselle, and the most gorgeous color to it…and my special touch,” Magnus ends as he completes the pour of the second glass and then reaches for one more ingredient, “Is lime.” He squeezes the juice of one cheek of fresh fruit into each glass. “Which has just enough tartness to accentuate the roselle…and make you crave another one when you're done.” 

“Does it have a name?” Alec asks.

“Not yet,” Magnus answers. “But if you like it I will name it after you.”

He’s very pleased to see that Alec’s blush turns as red as the finished cocktail at that remark.

“Although I do think,” Magnus adds, “That there may already be a drink named _Alexander_ …and you keep coming to my rescue…so I was thinking more along the lines of _Angel_.”

Magnus slides one full glass across the bar towards Alec. And as though they’ve rehearsed it forever, they each take a stem, their eyes met the whole while. They raise their glasses to their mouths. Magnus slows down just a little bit for Alec, who’s longer in the body; waiting so they can each taste the exact same thing at the exact same time. First touching the cool lips of the vessels to their own warm, yielding ones. Tilting their drinks then letting the tonic flood them.

The refreshing flavor over his tongue takes Magnus’ weary week away. And he watches carefully then for Alec’s reaction and waits for his response.

“It’s delicious,” Alec murmurs after a moment. 

Magnus feels his lungs expand so far they might burst with pride. “Alexander?”

“Yes?”

He feels a sudden need to say it all to him. Even though they’re in the middle of a public bar. Even though he doesn't know here who can overhear him and he’s so used to keeping things private; to overhearing everything but to never revealing a thing here about himself. But suddenly everything in the world is different, and should be; it needs to be, and so does Magnus. “I was very much hoping that you would come in some time. I was not hoping you would come in at that particular time that you did" - he thinks of Camille - "But I was so hoping that you would come in. And I’m so very glad you did, Alexander, and I’m sorry if what you saw when you did gave you the impression that I-”

“Hey, Alec? I’m really sorry man, but we better split or we are really gonna miss this movie.”

“Oh,” Alec says, as surprised as Magnus at Jace’s sudden appearance beside him. “Right…oh yeah, I…I almost completely forgot that. We…we are gonna go see a movie. Huh.”

“Well, of course, you are,” Magnus says, toughening just as suddenly as Jace has appeared, and indicating the shot of whiskey still on the bench that he measured out earlier. “I wouldn’t like to make you late for that.”

Jace collects the glass and drains it. He thanks Alec, who sculls the rest of his cocktail then sets the empty glass down; eyes dashing to Magnus’ briefly, but Magnus is keener to avoid Alec now. Perhaps it’s the alcohol - he doesn’t usually drink while working - but his emotions are perilously close to his surface, and it’s scaring him. He turns his back and bustles at the bench behind the bar.

“Here,” he hears Alec say.

It’s only a sideways glance that Magnus can give him in return. Just enough to see him push the coupon further across the bar, because Magnus still hasn’t collected it. He considers not collecting it. Considers telling Alec to keep it; the longer he keeps it the longer he keeps coming back. But what he says to Alec, in the end, is, “If you insist.”

And then he spikes it, along with several others he’s collected today. And then he watches the men leave the bar together, just as they arrived. Alec seemingly a lot happier this time; leaving with Jace as opposed to alone. But Magnus feels flatter than he has all week and dramatically more so than when he watched Alec leave the first time.


	7. Lecture

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a dry lecture, Alec gets thirsty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the seventh prompt on my Bingo card: bullying.
> 
> And this is not at all to cheapen the topic of the prompt by the way, my intention is not to do that. But I was a little stuck with how else to work a couple of the upcoming prompts into the narrative at the moment (which is most of the point of doing this project so who am I to complain about it) so I am attempting to start to set up a little thing with this one that will continue over a couple of the next chapters (and I finally remembered to mention Max so yay for that.)
> 
> Anyway I hope you enjoy the read and thank you for checking it out.

“Good morning, everyone...could I maybe just get a show of hands from the back rows? If you all up there can hear me.”

Alec raises his hand from where he sits in his usual spot in the back left corner of the auditorium.

A lecturer Alec hasn’t encountered before steps away from the lectern. Nods in acknowledgment of Alec's raised hand, and several others belonging to a smattering of other students in the back, then turns to a uniformed man. They converse for a moment out of range of the mic and then the lecturer steps up to it again and continues with their introduction. 

“Great. Our welcome this morning should be extended to Detective Luke Garroway from the New York City Police Department" - the lecturer nods at the uniformed man who returns their formal gesture of greeting - “Thank you for joining us, Detective Garroway. I’ll hand now over to you…and definitely not forget to press _record_ on this thing." The lecturer fiddles for a minute with a display on the lectern, out of sight of the third-year Human Rights cohort. “So, Luke...just if you notice that this little red light goes off, all you need to do is-”

Alec opens his laptop while they and the detective finish handing over. Alec follows the alert he's just received to join the live-stream. Alec is here this morning for the lecture sans Jace; he hasn’t attended live lectures for a while now but Alec is physically present and on time for all of them. It’s just a habit he started back in his first year here and has kept because he likes it; he likes the routine of getting up early with the daylight, then riding in on his bike from home to NYU, even if it’s raining.

“Thank you very much for the warm welcome," Detective Garroway begins. "I’ve been asked today to address you all on content dealing with the issue of bullying.” 

Alec’s noticed Jace is beginning to ask him a lot of questions about this subject and he’s beginning to suspect that it's not because he doesn't understand the concepts, just that he’s not watching any of these recordings back, well-aware Jace has never been the type to wake up early enough to join the live-streams from home. And recordings don’t include the chat, only A/V, so Alec screencaps the questions and answers posted there for Jace as it runs. Figuring all notes are good notes and he could do with as many of those as Alec could help him to get; Human Rights is an examinable subject, after all, and he’ll need to catch up on everything eventually. If he wants to pass it, that is.

“I understand you have already covered the rights of workers, and so today I have been asked to present what we do within the NYPD for post-secondary students such as yourselves, in educational organizations like NYU. But also to relate that to the practice of the defense of human rights in general.”

A screen about the size of the height of Alec’s house comes to life behind Detective Garroway. That is to say, it's big.

“I have also been asked to cover what we do in terms of educating about laws around bullying and harassment in secondary and primary schools, with teenagers and younger children, by way of presenting information via our anti-bullying programs. These programs aim to raise awareness of bullying as an issue, not just significant to civil rights, but again, more generally, broader human rights too...so…let’s start here with some facts…bullying affects mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing, and engaging in acts of bullying is in violation of the New York City Department of Education’s disciplinary code.”

The screen transitions to an image of a group of what Alec guesses are primary-school-aged kids standing with a group of police officers in a classroom, holding up a bunch of drawings. Alec's little brother, Max, comes to mind immediately, although the classroom shown in this picture doesn’t look even one eighth as fancy as the ones in the school that Max attends. Alec shifts uncomfortably in his chair at that stark lack of equity as the detective continues to transition through more screens showing more kids in a variety of classrooms across the City of New York, most of which look similarly much less advantaged than Max’s.

“The dee-oh-ee will investigate all reports of harassment…”

Alec frowns as Detective Garroway launches into sets of statistics now on the percentage of reported incidents of bullying to teachers in schools, as compared to anonymous reports made by people being bullied to confidential youth counseling services within the boundaries of the city, such as YouthLine. 

And as he listens, with one eye on his laptop’s lecture chat-feed, Alec finds his mind wandering back to the day at _Welcome Week_ he’d attended with Izzy, and to the girl on that day who was wearing yellow. Who he’d tried to help when he thought she’d been bullied. Because that’s what that had been, Alec thinks. But he hadn’t reported that to anyone. He wasn’t a teacher and she was an adult. How do adults, when not in a workplace context, report on the bullying of fellow adults? Alec considers asking that in the chat.

“Raising awareness of this issue is also done via our Facebook page...”

Alec keeps thinking about the previous point, even though the detective has now moved on. His recollections of that day and his reflections on that incident make him remember something else then too, which had occurred just afterward. When Alec had first met Magnus. 

He shifts uncomfortably in his chair again. One reason he sits in the back left corner when lectures are held in this auditorium is not so he can hide away but so he can sit near the window. But as he has this next thought, Alec is glad he sits where he does although this is still a little bit awkward. Everybody listening is so still. Alec knows he needs to move. He looks around nervously. 

“There are fact sheets available for parents of school-aged children…”

His eyes fix on the knees of the student sitting closest to him, between himself and the window, also suddenly hyper-aware of two more students sitting in the row behind him; Alec is not in the very back of the auditorium. These three people are the only ones who could really see what Alec is thinking of doing now. And three is not many, and Alec doesn't know any of them, but the idea of being caught now by them is still horrifically nerve-racking to him. So he loses several minutes of the next parts of the lecture to inching painfully slowly the base of his laptop closer to the edge of the foldable table on his lecture chair with one hand - screening their view - while his other hand pulls his backpack onto his lap, screening their view of that too. And then his fingers slide inside a tiny secret pocket that is sewn into the inside of his pack.

“Are there any questions?”

When he’d got home that day, nearly a month ago now, Alec had been careful to withdraw the enamel pin from the pocket of his shirt, where he'd stowed it, and tuck into here; this little pocket inside his backpack that seemed to fit it so snugly it could have been purposely made for it. He had done that so it didn’t accidentally go through the wash or something, or so his mother didn’t find it if she went through his washing, which she sometimes did still do; not that she - like his father - was around that much at the moment at home, to do things anymore like that much washing. 

But Alec doesn’t dare look at the enamel pin now. As though his view of the world can now be seen on the screen behind Detective Garroway, by the whole auditorium; he doesn't dare look anywhere but straight ahead. And while he looks straight ahead, Alec just fingers the hard enamel pin while he pretends to listen to the rest of the lecture. And while he thinks all about what Magnus looked like back on that day when he gave Alec this; the very hard enamel pin of the cupid with the rainbow wings. And then Alec thinks of how Magnus looked when they were together inside the bar. Inside the Warlock. The other night. And especially what Magnus looked like while his hands were being held and his knuckles stroked by the woman who had asked if the two of them were fucking each other yet.

“Show’s over, bro. Mind if I just get through?”

Alec's hand flings itself away from the pin. And his bag and his knees jerk so much they topple his laptop onto the carpeted floor of the auditorium.

“Shit," he cusses. "Ah, fuck, I'm so...sorry...a clutz-”

“No drama,” the student edging by him says, as Alec gathers his scattered belongings up, flustered.


	8. Delivery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A delivery arrives at the Warlock for Magnus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the eighth prompt on my Bingo card: anti-Eritrean prez.
> 
> I'm showing my ignorance again but I didn't even know that this prompt was written in English before I wrote this and I have learned things from doing this one! So I'm glad of that, and I hope you enjoy this read. Thanks for checking it out!
> 
> Just a minor warning there's casual discrimination / an ignorant view expressed about people facing homelessness in this chapter. ((wasn't quite sure how to tag for that but chose those; happy to correct if there are more appropriate ones))

“Good morning, David,” Magnus chirrups from the pavement. “And how the hell are you today?”

“I’m awful, Magnus. Ain’t I always?” David huffs and slams shut the door on the cabin of his truck. Then he waddles around to the rear of the vehicle and throws open the roller door. He unlatches the ramps ferociously and they fall with twin clangs to the bitumen, so loud that if the rest of the street wasn’t awake before, it sure is now. “But how the hell are you?”

“Oh, I’m fine,” Magnus answers. “How was your journey over?”

“Terrible,” he grumbles. “Traffic up my ass the whole damn way, that’s why I’m late. I’m never late for you, Magnus.”

“First time for everything I guess.”

“I hope that whatever they’re doing on Rockaway gets finished by this time next Monday,” David adds. “Gotta tell you. Or if I’m angry now, well, I’m gonna be furious by the time I get here by then for next week.” 

“Well, for your sake, I hope they fix it soon too, David,” Magnus says placatively. “But honestly, from where I stand, I think you have made it here this morning in a very good amount of time. It’s hardly a tick after ten o’clock. I’m always impressed by the way you keep time. Even on days when the powers that be decide to dig up the drainage, or whatever they’ve done. I’m just sorry it’s upset you so much.”

“Well, that’s alright…it’s just that your order is bigger today,” he grumbles as he heaves himself up the gangway and starts to fuss with his trolley. “It’s gonna take me longer.”

Magnus pries the cover off the underground cellar set beneath the side of the Warlock. It was a useful little customization he’d had done to the building when he bought and renovated it several years ago, just as he was finishing up at NYU. David starts to wheel down kegs from the truck as they help each other swap out the empties for the fulls.

“Well, you know I’m here to help you,” Magnus reassures. “But sometimes you have to look for the rainbow. Perhaps this is an opportunity to employ somebody, David. You do well, you could afford to pay for help. And if you were to pay for help, well then we could relax and drink tea or tonic together at times like this. And watch that person do all the hard work.”

“Employees only ever sound like a good idea until you get some and then you have to listen to them tell you all about themselves, and their problems, all the whole damn day long, Magnus. I mean, do you have any idea what it’s like stuck inside the cabin of a van for the forty-five minutes it takes to do one block in bad traffic, while somebody, I don’t know, sounds off to you about their bad back? Or their grandma? Or worse” - they finish swapping the kegs and then they start on the boxes - “Politics.”

“I can’t even begin to imagine,” Magnus answers drily.

“Well, I’m here to tell you that when an employee like that gets a captive audience, and a bee in their butt about something, they just don’t stop. The last one I had never shut up about the president of Eritrea. Now, do you know anything about Eritrea?”

“I have a feeling I’m about to.”

“Eritrea is a country in East Africa. Terrible president. Dictator. And I mean a real dictator, not just the kind of person people say _oh, he is such a dictator_ about, or _oh, this is such a dictatorship_. And whine on all about fascism or communism or socialism. When all they're really trying to tell you is just all about how they couldn’t get their McDonalds last night because they rely on their car to go the three blocks it takes to get there. Because they don’t wanna walk. But they ain’t got any gas left in their tank because that’s expensive these days. And also something vague about Iraq and oil. But they can still afford to buy their McDonalds. Like when you see a homeless guy begging with tattoos and you think, well, maybe instead of getting inked you should have spent that money on some food. Life is really all about choices. Do you know what I mean?”

“Let’s pretend I do.”

“I mean a real live actual dictator who has been cited for human rights violations left and right. And actually leads a totalitarian government. And not the kind of totalitarian government that asks you to vote on what you think and then based on that makes you pay your taxes, so somebody else in the system gets to keep their job of going to fix up the drains on Rockaway. Or whatever they’re doing. And make you run behind schedule on a Monday, and question why you had to have a portion of your hard-earned money be paid on that: making yourself late! What I mean is a government led by a man who thinks it’s okay to imprison ten-thousand people based solely on what they think inside their own heads. Now, there is a gap as wide as that hole in Rockaway between those two kinds of systems: the ones with the freedoms and the ones without. And the influence citizens are allowed to have on each one without risking being tortured for having opinions...where do you want all this apple juice, by the way?”

“Oh, that can go inside,” Magnus answers. 

“All of it?” David asks. “I mean, I gotta say, Magnus, this is a whole lot. What are you doing with it, making a cider? You’re gonna put me out of business and start making your own cider now? Which is fine. Because you know I could hook you up with some brewer’s yeast and equipment, I know a guy. But you might have to give me a little time to convince him to order from me again...we didn’t part so amicably last time.”

David pouts and Magnus pats his arm. “I won’t be needing brewer’s yeast today, David. But thank you very much for the offer. And besides, I would never not order your cider. It’s far too popular with lecturers.”

“Well, what then?”

“I have a new friend.”

“Oh.”

“And he likes apple juice.”

“Right.”

“So half of this is for the bar. But the other half I will be taking upstairs.”


	9. Tutorial

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a tutorial, Alec loses his cool.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the ninth prompt on my Bingo card: anti-American.
> 
> A warning for angst in this chapter. Please feel free to avoid this if necessary.
> 
> I know now through the research I needed to do to write this that the book title holds significance but I had never heard of it before reading the citation linked to this prompt and it just struck me as a beautiful phrase. It’s borrowed from a poem. And so I tried to work it in to here as the way to hopefully address this prompt enough. 
> 
> (((also I am not American so I am really sorry if I have screwed up the history but I did *really* try and please point out things I have screwed up if you read this and notice and I will fix them up!)))
> 
> I am really enjoying flustering Alec! I hope you enjoy the read and thanks for checking it out.

“So, who can nominate a historical context for us? And then we can start to put some of this into practice. Let’s see…Alec, how about we hear from you?”

On the inside, Alec is already grimacing. After the embarrassing way the Human Rights lecture had ended, he was hoping for a very quiet Legal Theory and History tutorial. And for that reason, he’d just sat strategically here in the corner of the room, when he’d first come into class. But why did lecturers always have to notice things like that and draw attention to them, and make them a big deal when they didn’t need to be? He’s usually vocal in tutes for this subject, isn't he? Can’t he cut a break for just this one time?

Alec shifts in his chair and struggles to muster sufficient focus to answer. “Um…like...the nineteen-seventies? Election of Nixon?”

“Ah, _Tricky Dick_ was actually elected in the late nineteen-sixties but that is close enough. I’ll allow it.”

Alec cringes at the lecturer’s innocent use of the term however to Alec it’s like his own private recollections are back on a public projection again; he’s been trying very hard to move on from earlier but this reminder and the fact he forgot a significant political date he probably should’ve remembered are starting to fluster him again. Mercifully, the lecturer doesn’t linger on it too long. He just plows on. But something about that, along with his shame, really starts to bother Alec now.

“Let’s take some instances from literature during the Nixon presidency in the early seventies as an example of how civil rights have evolved parallel to what was happening in, say, the creative arts. And hold in your mind for a minute the field of science fiction and the way that writers such as Hubbard had arguably already shaped the way our society was molding our country’s national identity. In examples like this, we are given templates, if you will. Now, another way of expressing that idea might be as a vision, a future we can conceive of and which can help us prepare psychologically for things which might actually happen. But what if we were to apply that concept to law? Alec, as this is your example, why don’t you tell us what was going on in nineteen-seventies America. Paint a picture.”

This time, Alec does visibly grimace. Why has he even shown up for this? He should’ve just gone home; he could’ve gone to the afternoon tute on Thursday instead. The one Jace always goes to. “Um,” Alec stammers again, “The Civil Rights Movement, I guess. The, um...well, Environmental Rights was gaining support as well. The American Indian Movement too.”

“Interesting you mention the last example. Why do you mention that one specifically?” 

Alec frowns. He was just asked to, wasn't he? “Well, because it was going on at the time,” he says, confused and very much over being spotlit. “Like I already said.”

“Vague statement.”

“What?”

“Vague statement,” the lecturer repeats. “Create some certainty for us.”

“Well, I dunno,” he flounders, definitely not in a mood for suggestions of indeterminacy. “What more do you want? _It was going on at the time_ , what needs explaining?” 

“The whole thing.”

Alec sighs. “Congress passed an act in, like, seventy-five. Nixon didn’t sign it. So, it wasn’t law until later in the decade. But the groundwork had been laid.”

“Ah,” the lecturer responds, smiling now in that way that parents do when kids say something naive but cute. “But that is exactly what I’m talking about. Thank you, Alec.”

His frown deepens. Is it just Alec, or has this guy got the most convoluted way of getting to points ever?

“The American Indian Movement did aim to secure rights in the historical contexts of the nineteen-sixties and early seventies,” the lecturer continues, “But they ultimately failed in the sphere of the law early on. Where other movements through civil actions like protests were able to harness a vision for a change in law, and won at that time, acquiring rights earlier…think of, as Alec has mentioned, the Black Civil Rights Movement, or we could also add things such as the Women’s Liberation Movement, and popular culture examples such as comics here and, once again, science fiction…Don McGregor, Angela Carter…there was no such transfer beyond the purely pseudo-political for Native American movements in the early Nixon-era, even though Nixon supported those, hence why there was no significant rights bill signed until mid-way through the decade. So, let’s have another example-”

“Wait a minute,” Alec interrupts. “Yes, there was.”

“I’m sorry?”

As the interrogation's worn on he's slid further down in his chair. Maybe as a way to try to slip through the floor. But all of a sudden he sits up straighter, with something he was made to read in second year back in the fore of his mind.

“Yes, there was an example of transfer to culture that tried to do something about the situation for Native American rights at that time. You’re wrong. That’s…well, that’s just wrong.”

The lecturer eyes Alec curiously. “Wrong?” he repeats.

“Yep.” Alec eyes him straight back, feeling far beyond just bothered now. Feeling decidedly pissed off.

“Okay, valid,” the lecturer says. “Good, in fact. But what are you, nine years old? Act like a third-year Law student, Alec. Don’t just give us more vague opinions. You can’t just say _that’s wrong_ and-”

“Well, you get to finish your points off wherever you like, so why can’t I?”

“I’m sorry?”

“You get to change the topic as soon as you make your point. Spin it however you want. You're…you’re a hypocrite.”

“I’m a lecturer.”

“Doesn’t mean you can conveniently leave out information which contradicts your points though.”

“Actually, Alec, that’s exactly what-”

“You’re sitting over there, telling me to verify my points, so let me!”

A ringing silence meets these words and it causes Alec to check his behavior. And he notices that as well as how much his anger has suddenly bubbled all the way up to his surface, he’s also got a finger aimed straight at his lecturer now. He lowers it.

“By all means, please share your points with us, Alec.”

“Dee Brown's _Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee._ That was the catalyst for occupation.”

“The contexts around that book are a very relevant example of anti-American activism, yes, Alec, thank you. But-”

“I’m not done! Just…I know what you’re gonna say. You’re gonna tell me that the book was the product of a movement that began in the sixties. Yeah, and _good boy, Alec, but we’re not talking about that specifically now_. Like I’m some kind of... _idiot_. But I’m talking about occupation as an anti-American sentiment. Okay? As a criticism of law with an eye to change it. Occupation is a..form of intervention. Right? Like a…an art happening. Yeah? People occupied Wounded Knee to pressure the American government at that time to do something about rights for Native American people because the government was slow and because activism is a continuum. It doesn’t just happen once and then it ends, and then everything stays the same forevermore. Movements surge up but if they ebb they don’t just fucking die. And that’s not _pseudo-political_. I mean, what the hell does that even mean? Did you just make that up? Your explanations of this are…very simplistic.”

“I genuinely welcome opportunities to be challenged in this class, Alec. Believe it or not, my job is to make you think.”

“Rights are things that in America people have been fighting governments for, for as long as we’ve had governments. For as long as probably almost every single one of us in this room has had ancestors here. And there are still people fighting for those whose ancestors have always been here. And to say that those fights, those movements, are failures because they don’t translate to laws immediately is ignoring the collective power of struggle. Now that is anti-American.”

“You’re implying, however sarcastically, that my moderate citation of facts is therefore pro-American?”

“If you agree that you are in a way erasing the significance of the inherent struggle of movements, which is to say devaluing what isn’t written into rights bills as law, and which includes the creative arts to perpetuate a vision that can be used for political gains for minorities and under-represented or marginalized populations in America, as though they didn’t matter until it was convenient for someone like you to make a very weird point about what’s written down and signed off on, then no I am not saying that about your sentiments because that would be discounting freedom of thought. And that is a right protected by law.”

Alec slumps back in his chair again, furious, although he’s unsure at exactly what he's so cross about. He's just cross. The lecturer had definitely goaded him then though, hadn't he? Maybe that’s it.

He doesn’t meet the eyes of anyone in the room after his outburst though. Even though the tute runs for another thirty-five whole minutes. And he doesn’t say another single thing for the rest of the class either, and the lecturer certainly doesn’t call on him again for further input. Like he had seemed hellbent on in the beginning.

Alec eyes the clock above the door like a hawk for the rest of the session. And when the lecturer finally calls time on the class, Alec is the first one gone.


	10. Izzy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone Magnus hasn't seen in several weeks arrives at the Warlock for a student union event.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the tenth prompt on my Bingo card: cultural sensitivity.

“I am ready,” Magnus announces proudly to Raphael, “When you are.” 

“Now is fine. What are we doing?”

“We are doing food and drink.” Magnus hands him a small clipboard displaying the carefully-planned culturally-sensitive menu the Warlock’s providing for the NYU Queer Occult Society’s Monday Afternoon Movie. “The vegan bar snacks are listed here at the top, see? Under their own heading…right there…the popcorn, the smoked almonds, the renkon chips…the kale chips…and then down here we have listed vegetarian options…the pretzels, samosas, the eggplant chips…and the karaage mock-chicken. I highly recommend that one, by the way. It’s very good.”

“Noted.”

“The kosher snacks are indicated by a lower-case _kay_ in brackets afterward…see it there?”

“Yes.”

“And absolutely everything on this menu is certified halal. Got that too?” 

"Got it."

“So, everybody coming should be able to eat” - Magnus lifts the page, revealing another beneath - “And now we need to talk about mocktails. Oh, and by the way, all of our regular cocktails are still available too.”

Raphael scans the second page. “I didn’t realize things like this applied to drinks,” he comments. “Apart from if they had milk, eggs, or honey in them. But some of these sound like they only have fruits and juice, or juice and soda.”

“Yes, that’s right. So, for example, the kosher drinks listed here use only fresh fruits, nothing aged. And with the juices and carbonated drinks...so, like…this one, with Pepsi…the processes used by the company are certified. So, it’s not always about just the individual ingredient. It’s about production. How things are treated. And what the ingredient makes contact with.”

“So, like...equipment?”

“Exactly.”

Raphael gives him a quizzical look. “Your knowledge is impressive. I’d no idea you knew this much about victuals.”

Magnus beams at the compliment. “Oh, shucks, Raphael. You know I try.”

They finish with the menu and then Raphael returns to arranging tables and positioning deck chairs in the covered courtyard out the back of the Warlock, where a projector will soon screen _Interview with the Vampire_. Magnus returns to the front bar. 

The Warlock opened today at midday, earlier than usual because of the event, so Magnus had still been unpacking and restocking bottles in the downstairs bar when several lecturers wandered in early. They were now drinking cider at a table over in the closed band space, and Magnus is just collapsing the last cardboard box of roselle-flavored lychee liqueur when a figure catches his eye at the door-end of the long counter. 

She is backlit because of that; the early-afternoon sun is streaming in through the tall narrow entranceway behind her, and at first, Magnus can’t see her face. Just the shape of her sitting there, not tidily; this woman is only small but she takes up space at the bar, spreading her arms across it like she owns it. Magnus likes this immediately about her. And as he watches the way her limbs form confident angles against the bright daylight, slowly more visual details emerge; her hair is long and dark, her clothes are dark too. And their sparsity on her upper body - she’s wearing a corset top - reveals a series of unusual tattoos he seems to be growing more used to by the week.

“Hello,” Magnus says to her in greeting.

“Hey,” she replies casually. “You’re open right? I can get a beer now? Or-”

“Oh yes, of course,” Magnus answers.

“Great,” she says. “Thanks.”

“No trouble. Pot or pint?”

“Pint.”

Magnus flips a pint glass down from the overhead rack. “And what will you have specifically? Corona is our house beer.”

“Sounds great. Cheers.”

“You attend NYU, right?” Magnus asks, making it sound as off-the-cuff as possible while the beer starts to flow from the tap, even though he absolutely remembers where he last saw this woman. And who he last saw her with.

The woman laughs. “It’s that obvious, is it? What is it, the type of beer? I should’ve ordered something like an IPA, right?”

“Oh no, it’s not that,” Magnus reassures, wondering how to best phrase what he wants confirming next. He knows he needs to raise it very carefully. “I’ve seen you on campus…do you, by any chance, have a brother?”

“Actually, I have three. But only two are old enough to go to NYU, so let me guess” - she leans forward, and Magnus likes the way she then proceeds to scrutinize him - “Alec, right? I bet it’s Alec who you know. A thousand bucks.”

“You're very unlucky I don’t gamble."

“Knew it.”

Magnus passes up her pint and waves her hand away when she tries to offer payment. “First one’s free today for students. And I should confess to not knowing your brother really...not well…but we have met each other. He’s been here, you know.”

“Has he?” The woman’s eyes light up. She scrutinizes Magnus again for a moment. Magnus does the same back to her. “I’m _Izzy_ , by the way,” she says, extending her hand. 

“ _Magnus Bane_ ,” he greets her properly, taking her proffered hand and shaking it firmly, and she smiles at that.

“So, do you go to NYU?” Izzy asks. “What were you doing there?”

“I’m a graduate,” Magnus answers. “If you’re here for the event then I assume you know Raphael?”

“Oh, yeah. My friend is doing the same course he did.”

“Raphael and I met at university,” he shares. “We're friends. So, I help him when he needs it with things like this. Events. On-campus as well as off.”

“That’s cool,” she says, between sips of beer. “Gonna watch the movie with us, then?”

“I’ll keep an eye on it, yes. Beautiful gay-coded vampire dads are not things I can ignore for too long.”

Izzy grins. “So, _Alec_ has been _here_ , huh?” She stares at Magnus for another moment. “When?”

“Friday night,” he confesses. And then he adds a little more quietly, “I made him a cocktail and we shared it.”

“Get out!” she exclaims. “Wow...so... _then_ what happened?”

“You aren’t shy.”

“Nope.”

“I like it.”

They eye each other again for a minute. Then Izzy says, “You know, you’re not that shy yourself...and you don’t have to answer me when I ask you all these questions...you know that too, right?”

“You know that neither do you."

She’s as intriguing to Magnus as her brother. Her eyes are almost the same as Magnus remembers that Alec’s are; a slightly darker shade of brown perhaps but equally curious. Izzy's gaze never wavers when Magnus looks at her directly though, like Alec's always does. She isn't nervous around him at all. 

“So, wait, go back,” she says, leaning in closer and saying it quietly over the top of her half-empty pint. “Are you and my brother...?”

“No,” Magnus says firmly, making a canceling gesture with his hands. “It was only one drink.” But he leans in closer too. Because he doesn’t just like this difference he finds in Izzy, between her and her brother; her confidence, her openness, her emotional intelligence. Magnus _loves_ it. And most of all he loves the way he seems to just trust her so intuitively. And feel the same kind of trust back. “He’s so very lovely though, your brother.”

“Go on,” she coaxes.

“But the other night he was here with someone,” Magnus confides. “And they were going, together, to a movie.”

“Blond guy?” she asks. “Blue eyes?”

“Yes,” Magnus answers. “Went by the name of-”

“Jace,” they say together.


	11. Clary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still on campus, Alec finds Jace, who's with someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the eleventh prompt on my Bingo card: child sexual abuse.
> 
> Trigger warning / sensitive content warning for implied/referenced child abuse, angst, and mentions of pedophilia.
> 
> Please skip this if you need to. I find this topic very confronting so I have filtered it through a fine art example which made it slightly easier to write about. The cited case is real. I hope it's enough to satisfy the prompt. 
> 
> Cheers for checking it out <3

Jace and what looks to be Izzy’s friend from high school - she has the same shade of strawberry-blonde hair - spring apart when Alec clears his throat. And when they do, Alec realizes that yes, it is her. He smiles at her and says, “Hey, Clary.”

“Hey,” she replies, standing up where Jace stays seated; at a table near the coffee cart outside Furman Hall.

“Oh,” Alec stammers. “Sorry, I…I didn’t mean to interrupt. I haven’t seen you in a while. How are you? Gee, your hair sure got long. It looks really nice today.”

“Thanks, Alec. And it’s okay, I should be going anyway. Got my first crit to prepare for.” Clary looks at Jace as she collects her bag and hitches the strap up her shoulder. “See ya?”

“Sure,” he says.

Alec watches Jace watch Clary walk off in the direction of the School of the Arts. He sits down next to Jace in the spot she’s just vacated.

“So, um…I just got out of the Legal-History tute,” Alec shares.

“Yeah?” Jace replies, eyes at first still on the distant Tisch School building but after a moment he shifts his attention back toward Alec. “I guess I’ll go on Thursday. How was it?”

“Fine,” Alec lies. 

Jace narrows his eyes a little. “No, it wasn’t,” he says. “You look about as wounded as she did thirty minutes ago.”

“How do you mean?”

“She had a bad lecture.”

“Urgh,” Alec groans, grimacing. “So, what happened in hers?”

“Well” - Jace takes a deep breath - “She said they were looking at children in art. Representations of kids throughout art history. And then they showed these photographs by some Australian dude and started talking about some recent case down there, of censorship. This old guy who she said was known for photographing teens. Got in trouble for taking nudes of this pre-pubescent girl. Sounded like a bunch of puritanical bullshit to me but Clary was really upset about it. I think maybe the actual pictures upset her? They showed the uncensored photos in the lecture and...I dunno...”

Alec’s interest piques. “I think we looked at that too. Last year, remember?”

“We did?”

“Yeah, um…this sort of neo-Baroque style…ah...Henson!”

Jace still looks very blank. 

“You remember,” Alec says. “An exhibition of his artwork in Sydney was shut down. The public reported his images to authorities as pornography of minors and his show was canceled before it even opened but he was never found guilty of anything. The parents of the girl said they gave informed consent but they raided his studio, looking for child porn. And then museums were ordered to take his works off display while he was investigated by feds for pedophilia. Artistic freedom versus child protection. Yeah, that was the Henson case.”

Jace frowns. “Geez…do I remember that?”

“Well, you might remember the tutes we had about it?” Alec suggests. “Those used to get pretty heated. People’s opinions were really polarised and I still don’t know, I mean, like...I felt for the models who they interviewed in some of those articles we read in class. I guess I was just imagining if that was me. Like, how I might feel, twenty years later, about something our parents had consented for me to do when I was little more than Max’s age…but would I really understand how people might look at me, you know? The models in those articles all said they didn't regret it now though. They said that at the time they always felt like it was art.”

“Alec, I really don’t even-”

He shifts a little closer; moves further up the bench seat toward Jace. “It was in Family, Gender, and Sexuality. And we had that lecturer who you always used to say reminded you of Keith Flint from the Prodigy, remember him? The green hair and the-”

“Oh!” Jace laughs. “Okay, yeah. I do remember that guy! _Ragnor Fell_. With the body mods!”

“The technical term, Jace, is _subdermal implants_.”

“Okay, whatever,” he says, still chuckling. “Yeah, I do remember all this now. That guy was cool.” 

Alec smiles at Jace. He smiles back. He and Clary must’ve been drinking coffee because two paper cups are on the table. One of Jace’s hands is still playing with his empty cup. The other rests loosely on his blue-jeaned thigh. Alec reaches out for that one and strokes the outside of it. Jace lets him. He’s been sitting for this whole time with his knees either side of the bench seat, and Alec’s been sitting with his knees crossed between them. The toes of Alec’s shoes pointing toward Jace.

“So, tell me about your lecture, then,” Jace says. “That was a bad one too, huh?”

“Oh, that’s your pretense is it?” Alec teases, keen not to tell Jace any of the truth about why the Human Rights lecture had been so bad. But also genuinely starting to feel a lot better about the day so far, now they're alone together again, just talking. “So you don’t have to watch it back, I will tell you all about the horrible lecture you missed. Again.” Alec looks from where their hands are still met back up into Jace’s eyes. 

“You know me way too well, Alec,” he says, grinning. “But listen, man, if it was bad-” 

“Ah, it wasn’t so bad, really,” Alec deflects. “I guess I’ve just been feeling really off so far today. Until now. But _you_ listen...you’ve gotta start going to lectures. Or at the very least watching them back, okay?”

“Yeah, I know,” he groans. “You remind me of this often. It’s just…you know what? I’m just not sure I’m so cut out for law.”

“Huh? What do you mean? Of course, you are,” Alec urges. “You just need to keep going, we’re almost through. This is _three-el_ , we’re almost finished!”

“I’ve got a semester of second-year Taxation still to make up...I’m not gonna finish this year. With you.”

“Listen, if I don’t start to get a grip on my temper in fucking Legal-History, I think I’m gonna go the same way in that as you did last year in Tax. We all struggle at something, none of us are perfect.”

Jace sighs. “You know, you still haven’t told me what happened in that tute.”

“Ah, I dunno,” Alec huffs. “It was the lecturer...he just always gets under my skin. It was my fault, I lost patience.”

“Maybe.”

“You know what would be really good though?”

“What?”

“It’s a really nice day again. Why don’t we go back to the park, like last Friday? Hang out there for a while in the grass. Remember that? It was nice.” Alec slides his fingers beneath Jace’s. Something crosses his stepbrother’s face then though. He still wears a smile. But his hand takes hold of Alec’s gently and places it back on Alec’s thigh. Then Jace lets go.

“I can’t today,” he says. “I promised Clary I’d go to her crit. It’s her first one. She seems pretty nervous. I wanted to support her. Did you know she’s here on a scholarship? Did Izzy tell you that?”

“No,” Alec says.

“Me neither. But, yeah, she is. And…well, that’s pretty amazing, don’t you think? Her course sounds really amazing too. They do history, like us. I mean it’s art history but…Alec...do you remember in high school? How I used to take pictures?”

“Well, sure. Yeah. Why?”

“Maybe I could be an artist. You know?”

“What?”

“A photographer. Because I’ve always loved taking pictures.”

“Jace, everybody loves taking pictures. I mean” - Alec lets out a very nervous laugh - “I love taking pictures too but I’m not about to sign up for art school.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing.”

They look at each other mutely for a minute. Jace isn’t smiling anymore. 

“I just meant, you know…well...it’s taking pictures, that’s all. It’s not...you know…it’s not law school.”

“You’re right,” Jace says, standing up. His knees still astride the bench. He looks down at Alec. “It’s not law school.”

Jace swings his inner leg up over the seat and starts to head in the direction of the School of the Arts. Alec stands too, starting to follow. “Jace, I didn’t mean it like that! Where are you going?”

“To Clary’s crit,” he calls out over his shoulder. “Might see ya later at home…don’t wait up though.”


	12. Chase

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the Warlock, Magnus confides in Izzy and she helps him realize some things.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The official BTB2020 project has recently announced a time of hiatus. 
> 
> I paused writing for a bit to decide what to do. There’s a note about that at the start of the fic if you want to know more.
> 
> I have decided to continue the story so here is the next little bit in response to the twelfth prompt on my card: animalistic humans.
> 
> Trigger warning / sensitive content warning for canon-typical discussions of step-sibling incest.
> 
> I hope you enjoy this read and thanks for checking it out <3

“So, you know Jace too, huh?” 

Izzy drains her beer and Magnus clears her empty glass then flips a clean one down from the overhead rack. “I only really know _of_ him,” he answers honestly, drawing another pint. “Alec hasn’t told me anything more than his name and what he likes to drink.” Magnus passes up the full glass, waiving her payment again. “But there are many things I suspect about Jace.”

The proprietor of The High Warlock of Brooklyn analyses Alec’s sister once more, watching carefully for cues and clues as she takes a generous sip of her fresh-poured Corona, then gives him that same look from earlier; the one that suggests she can reach right into his heart and sift fingers through his feelings like a comb that could untangle all the envy Magnus feels for Jace. And part it like a mane of hair. Divide it out from all the other things; the yearning for company and the loneliness inspiring that. And the real killer at the moment, his Achilles; his thumping desire for Alec to touch him in the ways he’s seen him touch Jace.

“He’s our stepbrother,” Izzy says. “Alec and Jace aren’t boyfriends.”

“Stepbrothers can be boyfriends,” he reminds.

“You don’t need to worry, Magnus, really,” Izzy reassures.

But Magnus is. And he isn't proud to confess what he's about to; a revelation of his most secret thinking. But if ever there was a time and a place to share so much truth, then surely this was it. Within the safety of his very own premises. And to Alec’s only sister. “They just seem so terribly close, that’s all. When they were here last Friday, I watched them over there” - he motions towards the little lovers’ nook - “Alec’s hands were very busy. He seems to be very...tactile.”

“You’re jealous,” Izzy says gently. “That’s what you really wanna talk about, isn’t it?"

Magnus blinks, suddenly feeling outrageously exposed, but not at all comfortable about it. “I don’t think I’m wrong to envy, am I?” he asks her very quietly. 

“Of course not,” she says, reassuring him for another time. “It’s a very relatable emotion.”

He’s grateful for the way she keeps doing that; reassuring him. It lubricates his tongue. “I’ve seen the way Alec looks at him, Izzy. And you must know I’m not a man who chases a thing that doesn’t wish to be caught.”

Izzy leans in again. _“Please chase him!”_ she begs. “Holy fuck, does he wish to be caught. He’s so _closeted,_ Magnus, he just needs some...help. And anyway, Jace has his eye on somebody else.” 

Magnus scans the scope of the Warlock’s ground floor, which is steadily filling with people here for the movie. It makes him nervous, on top of being already worried, to still be discussing something so personal inside a bar becoming so crowded. “Izzy?” he murmurs.

“Yeah?” she answers.

“Has Alec ever...?” Magnus raises his eyebrows, imploring her to know what he’s asking without him needing to voice the whole of such an intimate thing.

“Had sex?” she finishes brashly.

Magnus mouths a silent _yes_.

“Well, come on," Izzy quips through a grin, "Who the hell else gets a crush on their stepbrother?”

He agrees but he certainly can’t share in her mirth about it; if anything his feelings have tipped into something more like mourning and definitely sympathy. “If a closeted virgin has romantic feelings for their stepsibling...one who’s already chasing around after somebody else...well, then I don’t think it takes Rebecca Gordon to figure out that a broken heart's on his chart.”

Her smile fades. Her brow knits. And the resulting frown on Izzy's face reminds Magnus so much of Alec. When he’d stood the other night, almost exactly where his sister sits now, and smoothed out his scrunched-up coupon on the bar. “I wouldn’t wanna be around when he hears about Clary,” Izzy admits, as Magnus holds for a little longer that image of an earnest Alec. “Although maybe I should be," she adds. "Maybe _you_ should be.”

He frowns at what she's implying. “We must not force these things.”

“What do you mean?" she asks, and there's a genuine innocence in the way she asks it that he realizes, even though until now he's perceived her as a person gifted with empathy, means she doesn't yet know the keen sting of heartache as he does. "It's what you want, isn't it? To be with Alec? Haven't we just spent-"

“What I mean is that I think I have been planning to move far too fast for someone like your brother,” Magnus says, feeling like he might be starting to understand it better now; the co-dependency he’s seen in between the flirtations he knows he and Alec have definitely shared. But Alec isn’t ready yet for what Magnus wants. He may never be.

“He just needs a nudge,” Izzy urges again. “Let me give you his number. Call him!”

“No,” Magnus says firmly. “You are brazen, Izzy, and I admire that but these things are delicate. And too often they are also very precarious. Hearts can’t be rushed. And some things are not meant to be.” 

There’s an awkward pause after that. Izzy spends several minutes saying absolutely nothing, even slowing down on her beer. And Magnus doesn’t make a habit out of drinking while working but eventually, he resorts to a liquid comfort too; pulling up a bottle of lychee liqueur and pouring himself a double over rocks.

“I’m really sorry,” Izzy says after Magnus has drained the glass and all he’s left with is the sweet aftertaste but it's not sweet at all. It just reminds him of the feeling of watching Alec leave on his way to the movie the other night with Jace. “I think I’ve been selfish?” Izzy continues. “You must have baggage, too.”

“Only my fair share, I’m sure,” he murmurs. “But _you_ selfish? Izzy, you care for your brother. What could be selfish about wanting what you think is best for someone who you so clearly love? You seem alike in that regard, you and he...do you know, I have only ever really spoken to him twice? But on both of those occasions, he did me a genuine kindness.” Magnus sighs. “I do try…but I cannot, hard as I try, stop thinking about him.” 

“Call him,” Izzy urges again.

“Call him and tell him what exactly?”

“Just…well, just exactly _that_ , Magnus. Call him and tell him what you just told me.”

“I can’t tell him that! I mean, how do I even explain how I suddenly have his number?”

“Well, how about you just be honest about that too? I mean, if you really don't want it, that's fine. I’m not gonna force you. I get it. But...it just seems like you do wanna actually call him. You keep saying you…well, you just sound like...I dunno...like you miss him.”

Magnus’ heart nearly stops. That’s exactly what it is. Magnus does miss Alec. “I won’t pretend it’s not true... but I have made mistakes before and I would not want to make them again with your brother.”

They gaze at each other for a minute.

“Well, what if it was me who called him then?” she suggests “And what if it was me who invited him here? To the movie? Then you wouldn’t have to explain anything. He wouldn’t even need to know we’d talked.”

Magnus smiles sadly, thinking of the pin he gave Alec way back on the day they first met. And how he’d seemed happy to receive it. Until Magnus had offered to fasten it to his chest and then he’d tucked it away. And probably never even looked at it since. Probably thrown it out. “I’m not sure I can invite a closeted man to an openly queer movie, Izzy.”

She sighs. “Well, it’s not like it’s _We the Animals_ or something.”

“What’s not?”

Magnus jumps a mile at the horrifying prospect that’s just appeared by Izzy’s side; evidence of being overheard. “For fuck’s sake, Simon!" Izzy scolds, as Magnus starts a frantic recollection of the past five minutes in an effort to understand exactly which fragments of their very personal conversation he might have caught. Just the idea of it sickens him. This is why he never drinks at work. "You nearly gave me a heart attack!” Izzy’s saying through his panic. "By the way, have you two met yet? Simon, Magnus. Magnus, Simon.”

He manages to force what he hopes is a smile. “I think we have met actually, yes,” he says in a wooden voice. “At the campus.”

“Ah yeah, the _Welcome Week_ stall, right?” Simon says. “And I made an idiot out of myself trying to explain that _Animal Farm_ could have been a classic queer occult novel if the animals were into paganism as well as animalism. And also if, you know, George Orwell hadn’t been born into a time when homosexuality was illegal. Or if he hadn't also developed a bunch of fixations on looking mainstream even though he was a socialist. And then made the even more fatal error of actually telling people all about them. He could’ve just kept all that to himself but I dunno, writers seem to have this tendency to think that every thought they ever have is interesting. But really that’s why they have editors.”

“Huh?” Izzy says, looking completely bewildered.

“Well, yeah,” Simon admits. “I mean I did preface all that by saying I made a fool of myself, remember that part, Izzy? So don’t say you weren’t warned. Anyway, um…is Raphael here yet?”

Magnus waves a very relieved hand in the direction of the covered courtyard out the back and Simon thanks him and heads outside. Magnus stares after him, still more than just a little bit dazed. And feeling a tiny bit drunk.

“See that?” Izzy murmurs. “That is a classic case of textbook chasing, Magnus Bane…you could do that.”

The sound of his full name captures his attention again. As does another of her implications. He takes a very deep breath and lets it out slowly. “I have only suggested, Izzy, that perhaps I shouldn’t chase. I have certainly not suggested that I couldn’t. Please learn the difference.”

“Okay,” she says, pulling out a phone and dialing a number. “Ready whenever you are.”


	13. Masturbation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec's had a really bad day so far.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the FREE SPACE on my Bingo card. From the original list of prompts, I chose good old masturbation because I absolutely love writing it.
> 
> Explicit sexual content in this chapter. Trigger warning for angst and a bit of internalized homophobia.

Alec’s phone starts up again but he’s just not in a mood to talk to his sister. He already saw it’s her number calling; a succession began as he cycled home but he didn't answer any of them.

All Alec's in a mood to do now is switch his cell to silent, go directly to his bedroom and lock the door, even though he knows he’s alone here; Max isn’t home yet and won’t be dropped off back from school for at least another hour, and Jace surely won't be home for a good while either. But Alec doesn’t want to think at all about his stepbrother, although that is a fucktonne easier aimed for than actually achieved.

Alec throws his bag and his phone on his bed and then he hurls himself down on that too. Facedown, he closes his eyes and tries to erase what he can still see burned in his mind; the image of Jace walking off after Clary. He tries to replace it with something else. Something that is just of Jace. The way he’d stood over him maybe, and Alec had looked up at him in the way he had from where he’d sat, thirty minutes or so ago, with his stepbrother’s blue-jeaned thighs in his sightline

Alec curls his body into a fetal position and feels his throat start to constrict. His eyes begin an angry prickle so he tries to think back further. To the tutorial. To the heat he’d felt in that; his anger at his lecturer’s inability to leave him the fuck alone and let him just think in isolation for a minute. Why had he been so pissed off going into that class? Nothing but frustration has followed Alec today. 

He rolls to his back and slides his hand up inside his black short-sleeved shirt, feeling absentmindedly at his warm bare skin and then pressing against the soft muscle of his pec. Rubbing there, at its yielding definition. And thinking back to even earlier in the day. He scrunches his eyes at the memory of the lecture, pinching at his skin now to dull the pain he still feels acutely at the way he’d been caught, horny and fantasizing. But not about Jace. 

Alec ceases the physical pain he’s been making in his body - the pinching - and instead he lets his fingers slip more gently, more lovingly, across his chest to his nipple. Softly he plays with himself just there, eyes still closed. And while he plays he thinks about Magnus. 

Alec inhales and slides his other hand down to the button of his jeans, shifting his hips and re-tracing his earlier actions inside his head - getting home to an empty house, making sure he definitely locked the door to his bedroom - just to be sure he can get away with this now.

But even so his nervous eyes open and flick across the room to the closed door once more. The space is full of sunlight, the blinds are up and it’s hardly mid-afternoon. Everything around him is so stark. Alec shuts his eyes again and repositions so one knee makes a tent with the doona, erected between his hand inside his now open fly and the door; just in case someone were to walk in here and see this. 

He feels so hot already inside his own fist as he pulls himself free of his jeans and wraps his hand around his cock, starting to pull himself completely hard. His fingertips still circling his nipple beneath his shirt and his neck tensing as he starts to reimagine Magnus.

The strokes Alec makes along his dick lengthen. Alec’s breath shakes and his mouth works against the empty air, lips fluttering as his hand frisks faster; fingers slipping over the tip of himself to slick them up a bit with the weep. But he’s miles too horny to care if this is even only a little bit rough. He just wants relief from everything. 

Like the shame he'd felt when Jace had pushed his hand away as they’d sat on the bench outside Furman Hall. Like the pathetic way he couldn’t even look at a fucking pin in public for fear that someone might catch him doing that, and call him a _fag_ , as the girl in red had done that day at the fucking _Welcome_ event, from weeks ago. And most of all, and always - Alec never has respite from this - like the loathing he feels at himself all the time over stupid fucking hang-ups like these. 

And yet that feeling just hurts him so good. The hang-up. It’s just like a hard pinch. And he hates it but he also likes it; likes knowing he is all these things he can never say. But he can still try to overcome them one day, somehow. And hasn’t he? Isn’t he? Trying. Walking up to that stall that day. Looking that beautiful guy in the eye. Losing breath. And convincing Jace to go back to that bar. But only so Alec could side-eye Magnus the whole fucking time. Flirting with Magnus inside that bar, in full fucking view of everybody, even Jace. 

Alec holds his breath so hard and opens his eyes and thick cum paints his lonely fist. His body relaxes after that, slowly. The angst in it giving way to a high so relieving he could sleep. And then just disappear into his dreams. Let his bed take him somewhere else. To be somebody else. Just for a minute. A man who didn’t have all the hang-ups of Alexander Gideon Lightwood. He thinks then of the way Magnus says his name. _Alexander_. Like it's something special.

Alec's body grows so soft now. On the verge of drifting off. He shifts his head on his pillow and wonders at first if the rhythmic sound in his ear is actually the gate of a dream. It mingles with the chirrups of birds beyond his window. It stops for a moment and a car sweeps the street. Alec’s not asleep. Daylight seeps through his lids. They flicker. And then the rhythmic sound returns; his phone vibrating next to him. Still set to _silent_. 

Now his angst is gone and his head feels clearer, he thinks again of Izzy. Maybe he should have answered the cell when he first got home, instead of jerking off. Maybe she needs him. What if she’s in trouble? He reaches for it, noticing just a fraction too late that it’s not Izzy’s call he’s answered and there’s still cum all over his hand.

“Hello?”


	14. Phone Call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus and Alec talk on the phone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the fourteenth prompt on my Bingo card: institutional racism.
> 
> I don't know what the original citation was because that document doesn't exist anymore but I wanted to find something real although not too recent just because this story has so much angst going on already so I found another law example, still current but just a tiny bit historical too. 
> 
> So, [LaDoris Cordell](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/LaDoris_Cordell) who Alec talks about in this chapter is a real American retired judge of the Superior Court of California. She was an assistant dean at Stanford Law School and the first female African-American judge in Northern California. 
> 
> [She was interviewed here](https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/juvenile/bench/race.html) about institutional racism in the United States juvenile justice system in 2014. This chapter imagines she said those things as a guest lecturer in Alec's Criminal Law lecture.
> 
> Thanks again for reading this and I hope you enjoy the read <3

"Alexander?" 

"Huh? I mean, _hi_. Hello."

"Hello."

"Wait...what? Is this…is this you?"

"This is Magnus. Magnus Bane. I hope you don’t mind but I got your number from-"

"I know who you are. I remember your voice."

"Oh, great. Oh, that’s great, I’m…I’m so glad to hear that you remember me...Alexander, are you still there?"

"Ah…yep…ah…wait on…"

"Are you alright?"

"Aha."

"You sound breathless."

"I…I’m fine, I'm just…looking for tissues."

"Tissues?"

"Found some."

"Okay. Do you have a cold?"

"No, just, you know…cleaning up."

"Did you spill something?"

"Um, yeah. Yep…but it’s fine now, I’ve, um…cleaned it up now, so… _hi_ again."

"Hello again. I hope you don’t mind that I called you?"

"I don’t mind. Not…not at all. Not…at all."

"Okay, great...so…well, apart from spilling something, how are you?"

"I’m fine. How are you?"

"I’m fine too. Busy. We’re hosting an event today. A movie screening. So there are a lot of people here right now."

"Oh…cool…yeah, it does sound noisy there."

"Your sister is here."

"Is she?" 

"Yes."

"Oh…ah…is she okay? She’s called me, like, ten times in the last thirty minutes."

"Most of those calls were from me."

"Huh?"

"Most of those calls were from me…Alexander? Are you still there?"

"Ah…yeah. Yep. What do you mean most of those calls were from you?"

"Your sister lent me her phone." 

"She did?"

"Yes. She...I...wanted to call you…but...would you like to talk to her? I can go outside and get her, the movie hasn’t started yet. It wouldn’t be a problem. If you’re worried about interrupting-"

"No, that’s fine. I…I’d prefer to talk to you." 

"You would?"

"Yes."

"Well, that’s great. That’s…that’s really great. That…that makes me happy to know that…Alexander?"

"Yes?"

"Oh, I was just checking that you were still there."

"I’m still here…Magnus?"

"Yes?"

"I was just checking that you were still there too."

"I’m still here too…where are you at the moment? Are you on the campus?"

"No, I’m home. At my home. I, um…well, I should be at a lecture actually. I had one more today but I…I dunno, I was feeling a little off earlier so…thought I’d just watch the live-stream from here. From home."

"Oh. I see. So, you are busy too. That’s fine."

"Well, I mean…no, wait a minute I mean, I’m not...well, I’m not really _busy_ …they record all the live-streams so I could watch it later..if...you know…well, if I was to suddenly _get_ busy…Magnus? Are you still there?"

"Yeah, I just…I just went upstairs. Catarina’s on the bar, it should be quieter now...is it?"

"Yeah, I can hear you better now."

"I can hear you better now too....so, um…well, which subject do you have a lecture for? What will that be about? I’m so sorry, I don’t think I’ve ever asked you before what you’re studying at NYU."

"Oh, it’s only Law. I didn’t do a double. My parents wanted me to but I…well, I didn’t. They weren’t too happy about that but I just…I dunno, it just seemed like…well, just like taking on a lot, you know?"

"You don’t have to explain to me. I’m not your parents...are you still there?"

"Yeah."

"Is there anything _only_ about Law anyway? Do you know what I mean? That must be such a lot all on its own."

"Um…yeah, I guess, I mean…well, that’s why I didn’t do a double, even though most people do…I guess I spend a lot of time studying and stuff…yeah…so, I have a Criminal Law lecture. You asked me what I had, right?" 

"I did." 

"Right. I’m…it’s…geez, I dunno why I’m so tongue-tied suddenly…sorry…it’s been a really weird day."

"It’s alright."

"So, um…well, we’ve been doing Juvenile Justice…looking at institutional racism and discrimination in the American juvenile justice system…like, it’s not a fair system at all. Never has been…and there are just too many judges with biases and not enough diversity on benches. Like we heard from this ex Superior Court judge last week…LaDoris Cordell…she talked about white male judges specifically and seeing their biases at the time when she was still working. And she said that even the judges who said they weren’t racist or prejudiced were walking into courtrooms and making assumptions about kids based on how they looked...partly because probably they’d never encountered kids from minority backgrounds anywhere before…and let alone in a courtroom, some of them…but also because stereotypes are so embedded in the human psyche. So she said even the well-meaning ones would do it. And to combat that sort of stereotyping juvenile court judges needed targeted training to address their biases. Towards improving statistics on racial disparity, which are still way out. Because it’s judges who make those statistics, that was a really powerful point she made, I'll never forget that…and I mean, sure, like…yeah, that’s really important…but, like, also, just...the whole system is just racist. The whole fucking system. And if the system is the problem it could be full of people who say they’re not racist…who get all this training...and also who represent everybody coming through that courtroom…but it would still be the same old completely racist system…and…Magnus? Are you still there?"

"Yes."

"Jesus Christ, I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to rant then. It’s just-"

"You’re fine. You were telling me about your lecture. I asked you to. I’m very interested in what you have to say...in what you think...I didn’t realize you were a lawyer. I’m quite fascinated by that."

"Well, I’m not a lawyer yet." 

"We are all works in progress, Alec...are you still there? Alexander?"

"Ah…yeah…yeah, absolutely, sorry, just…well, I was just listening to you."

"Listening to me?"

"Listening to you."

"Alexander?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you know Prospect Park very well?"

"Well, yeah. Sure. I live right by there. Been going there forever."

"They have this app."

"App?"

"Yeah. You do know what an app is, right?"

"Yeah, of course I know what an app is."

"I did know you knew that. I was just teasing you…I’m sorry."

"That’s okay…you can tease me a little bit about things like that. I don’t mind."

"Alec, would you…well, would you like to go to the park sometime? With me? I mean, I know you’re busy today with your lecture but…well, maybe at another time when you don’t have a lecture...and when I don’t have an event to host…Alexander? Are you still there?"

"Yeah...yes…oh my god, yes, I…I would…I would l-love to go to the park with you, Magnus…yes...absolutely...absolutely, absolutely, yes."


	15. Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec and Magnus meet up in the park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the fifteenth prompt on my Bingo card: lesbians.
> 
> (Very excited that the BTB2020 project is returning!)
> 
> Thank you for checking this out and I hope you enjoy the read <3

Alec has a study session now. He usually spends this in the library at NYU but he’s not there this morning; instead, he’s on a swing in the Harmony Playground at Prospect Park. He’s not actually swinging though, just sitting here waiting. He did bring his colloquium notes along with him from home but he doesn’t really think he’ll be reading those today. 

Having his notes with him here, and a few of his favourite pens, is easing his nerves. Every time Alec starts to think about this for what it really is - a date - his stomach starts doing backflips. He’d arrived here miles too early because of that anxiety, and the park had been quiet until about thirty minutes ago. When a woman in a tuxedo showed up all by herself at the south-west end of the Long Meadow.

The longer he sits here waiting and not swinging - with his bag of notes and pens between his feet, distracting himself from his own apprehension by observing the woman in the tux - the longer Alec suspects that she is as nervous as he is. It’s not a walk she’s performing at the edge of the field, or a casual stroll: it’s a pace. And she keeps playing with a flower that’s fixed to one of her lapels. Alec realises two more things then. The first is that she is a groom. The second is that her actions are exactly the kind he’s sure he’d perform if he was one too.

“It’s a beautiful colour on her, isn’t it?”

Alec nearly falls off the swing. “Holy shit…I mean...oh my god it’s you.” He stands too quickly and steps towards Magnus with no regard for the ground before him; his feet catching inside the loop of the strap on his shoulder bag, and Alec stumbles. All boots and awkward legs and no grace. Magnus reaches out to catch his arm and Alec stares at the cuff of his jacket. And then at the shoring hand which has him held as he steadies himself on his feet. 

In the instant it takes for Magnus to make just that one firm grab on his arm, Alec remembers the woman in the bar he’d seen, nearly a full week ago now; she’d been stroking Magnus' hands and he had seemed to like that so much. Alec looks up. 

A soft stubble is brushed about his mouth and jaw this morning. His hair is styled in a similar way to how Alec's always seen it; in a coif that makes him feel both lost in and found by the kohl-lined pair of eyes it crowns. And in the clean light of Prospect Park’s morning, with its bluish tinge set against what Alec thinks at first might be the grey of the jacket Magnus wears today, the dark brown of his eyes is probably not a colour he could ever name without help; he doesn’t think of himself as a bard and he's definitely not an artist. All Alec knows is that shade of brown always makes him feel as flushed as he’s becoming now.

Magnus turns his attention back to the groom for a moment. Alec wonders if that’s really for him, for Alec; if averting his eyes somewhere else is done to give Alec time to recover from the idiocy he seems to have now at the ends of his legs instead of feet. He, too, looks again at the groom. The colour she wears is dusty. Like the colour of Magnus’ jacket. Which isn’t grey, Alec realises now. “It’s blue,” he says.

“I thought it was purple,” Magnus confesses. “But you’re right. Violet is bluer...the bride's dress is the exact same hue. I saw her arrive at the Picnic House when I passed by there on my way here to meet you."

Alec wonders if he should explain that he wasn't talking about the tuxedo but the words aren’t there; his nerves have taken over again.

Magnus looks at Alec and smiles. "Hello." And then he starts to take some steps backwards, away from the swings but never too far from Alec; hand leaving Alec’s arm but with fingers still outstretched. “Did you know that I walked here, Alexander?” He’s still moving backwards and teasing at the air now with his outstretched fingers. Coaxing as though to a pet. His face still made so soft by his smile and his eyes affecting Alec again. “Walk with me?” Magnus invites. “There are things I’d like to show you. I have several favourite places here.”

“I, ah...urgh” - Alec yanks his still-tangled bag out from under his boots and slings the strap up and across his shoulders. The sudden opportunity to move affords him a blessed moment of confidence. Alec really hopes that’ll last long enough to at least get a few steps in. And some words. “I have some places I like too,” he finishes. And then he motions back towards the swings they’re leaving. “Those are one of them...I really like swings for some reason, I don’t know why.”

“I’m sorry for keeping you waiting,” Magnus apologises, as they start to walk together across the grass until they’re following a southward path. “I hope you weren’t there alone for too long. I’m not late, am I? Walking takes forever.”

“Oh, no, you were totally on time,” Alec says. “It’s me, I was early. I would’ve hated to be late for you...that would have been maybe even more worse than tripping over in front of you just before.” Their eyes catch and on cue, Alec trips again. Even though the path is flat.

“So, where else do you like to go here?” Magnus asks, looking away and once more it seems timely; done so Alec can recover.

Alec takes a deep breath. “Ah, well, me and Jace often ride here,” he says. “And when we get here we usually just lay under trees and, um…well, you know, talk and look at the sky...so, I guess…well, I like going everywhere here, depending. But there’s a really nice view from Lookout Hill. I’ve been there a lot of times, although it’s always kinda busy…the Butterfly Meadow’s nice too.”

“Oh, that’s beautiful, yes,” Magnus agrees. “We could go there. Would you like to?”

“Sure,” Alec says. Still feeling nervous but talking is helping. Walking is helping too. “I mean, anywhere really, I like this whole park. Oh...I brought study notes too, by the way. Sorry, that’s...probably really nerdy...” 

Alec casts another scant glance across the path at Magnus, whose mouth quirks again. And Alec feels his own do a similar kind of thing. It's almost like a little mimic. A call and reaction he thinks he may have noticed before. Maybe it was in the bar. When they drank together. Alec’s gaze seems to linger such a lot on his mouth. His stomach starts up with the backflips again.

“Well, maybe we could find a bench,” Magnus suggests. “Down by the lake there are many…I was wondering” - Magnus pulls out his phone from a pocket inside his jacket and flicks around the screen for a moment - “If you have ever done this before?” 

He passes the phone to Alec. Their hands touch and Alec’s heart flutters. On the screen is a picture of a bird. “Ah…oh, right…the identification thing, yeah…we used to do this in grade school but it wasn’t an app, it was just on a paper…that’s a bluejay.” Alec says it and then he promptly feels stupid because not much else looks like a bluejay. He might as well have called it a bird.

“A budding ornithologist, as well as a lawyer,” Magnus quips. "Impressive."

“Well...you know” - Alec swallows - “W-wouldn’t want you wasting that degree you seem to have in sarcasm.”

Magnus’ eyes widen. “For a first time, that was quite good, Alexander,” he murmurs. 

Alec blushes.

They’ve stopped walking by now and moved closer together. Magnus’ phone is still in Alec’s hand. And while Alec holds it, Magnus begins to swipe through the pictures of other local birds that can be found in Prospect Park, as well as some aerial maps imported from Google. But Alec isn’t paying much attention to that anymore. And he wonders whether Magnus is either. All Alec’s head is full of now is Magnus’ hand. And the way, each time his fingers complete a swipe across the phone’s screen, their tips brush along the inner web of Alec’s thumb.

It’s the most obscene thing he thinks he might have ever let happen to him; the way Magnus strokes him repeatedly there. And the most thrilling experience Alec thinks he might have ever had is standing here, in the middle of a path in Prospect Park instead of in a library study session. With his bag full of notes on repentance and a bunch of random pens. While a beautiful guy, whose phone Alec holds, brushes the inside of his thumb with his fingers like that. Maybe accidentally. Maybe not. What Alec is sure of though is that he must’ve seen that image of the bluejay at least fifty-five times by the time Magnus is finished showing him the app.


	16. Notes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Still in the park, Magnus and Alec get closer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the sixteenth prompt on my Bingo card: criminal not sorry.
> 
> Trigger warning / sensitive content warning for mentions of an actual murder/manslaughter case and mentions of illicit drug use.
> 
> Thanks again for reading this and I hope you enjoy the read <3

They walk together after that in an electric kind of silence from there on the southward path to the edge of the lake. Magnus breaks it first. “Here?” he checks. "This spot is nice, right?"

“Sure," Alec answers. "And...swans. We found the swans.”

“Did you know they mate for life?” Magnus asks.

“Oh, they do?”

“Mm-hm...I don’t know how I know that actually…it’s true though...I think that’s why people come here to be married. And why swans are a symbol used on so much wedding paraphernalia. Have you ever noticed that? Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” Alec says. “I do.”

"So, apart from the swans, this spot is okay? Quiet enough?”

“Aha.”

“Okay. Just checking.” They sit down. “Alexander?”

“Yes?”

Magnus doesn’t know where it’s coming from. He’d been feeling very sure up until now. Like he knew where this was going. Like he had complete control. It was a date, sure, but he thought with Alec - who he knew he wanted to take things very slowly with now, he had confidence in that knowledge - well, that’s what they would do now; just take things slow and talk and get to know each other. This was what he’d resolved to do, the other day, when he’d spoken at so much length about it with Izzy. But suddenly Magnus feels incredibly nervous. Maybe it was all the talk about swans. Had the nervous groom freaked him out? Or was it the hands? Alec’s hand had felt so soft. “Um,” Magnus stammers. “You mentioned you, um... well, you brought study notes, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Alec says. “Ah…wait.”

Magnus watches him reach inside his shoulder bag, which is still slung around his body. From it, he pulls out a sheaf of papers stapled together down one side. It’s a reader.

“Just my articles for this week,” Alec says. “I suppose I brought these in case you didn’t show up.”

“Really?”

“No,” he says grinning. “I brought them in case I got so nervous I needed a total distraction. I knew you’d show up.”

“That’s really cute,” Magnus says.

“That’s not cute at all. It’s really dumb.”

“It’s not dumb. I promise…is there a topic for your articles?” 

“Repentance and mercy.” 

“Light and breezy, huh?”

Alec chuckles and Magnus nearly melts into the park bench they’re on. He looks so beautiful when he chuckles like that. “It’s pretty heavy,” Alec admits. “Not really something people should probably talk about on a...well, you know.”

“On a date?”

Alec exhales and shifts on the bench. “Yeah.” 

Magnus watches Alec’s cheeks blush while he bites on his lower lip gently.

“I was being sarcastic,” Magnus confesses, feeling his own face start to blush too. It scares him a lot, how much he’s starting to feel here now with Alec. How much he’s relaxing around him. How nervous he’s grown. As nervous as Alec seems to be too.

“About the date?” Alec asks him.

“No!” Magnus laughs. “Not about the date, about the notes.” He swallows, watching Alec’s hands start to leaf through the pages. 

“I know you weren’t joking about that,” Alec murmurs. “About the…date. Sh-should I put these away?”

“Depends,” Magnus says. “Do you want to talk about them? I mean, I don’t mind...I enjoy hearing you talk about what you study, Alec. What you do every day and what you think about...I wasn’t kidding on the phone when I said that.”

“Well, sure. We can talk about this if you want.”

“Is it a case?”

“Actually, no,” Alec says. “Well, it’s sort of a case, I guess…I mean, they’re all tied to cases. A woman who was charged with the murder of her boyfriend but convicted of manslaughter. Sentenced to ten years, released early. The parents of the boyfriend were convinced she deliberately caused his death. An overdose. Allowed him to overdose and didn’t call paramedics. Anyway, this other woman, a writer who writes non-fiction about grief and loss and also things like repentance and mercy…Helen Garner...she seems to follow a lot of legal cases. Writes books about feelings around legal cases. So anyway, she went to all the court sessions and interviewed the parents of the boyfriend. The accused didn’t agree to her interview requests but she wrote a book anyway called _Joe Cinque’s Consolation_. That was the name of the guy, _Joe Cinque_. The boyfriend. But, we’re studying this because it’s full of a desire by the victim’s family for repentance to be shown by the accused. They didn’t believe she was sorry for what she did, but she was released. So…we’re engaging right now in debates in the workshops about what true and actual repentance looks like. And whether repentance should exist at all. Should criminals be made to feel sorry? Why is that part of a sentence? And remorse. What is remorse? This woman was mentally ill at the time, so does that person belong in a jail cell at all? Who should actually be remorseful there?”

“Light and breezy,” Magnus murmurs.

“I warned you,” Alec smiles. And then he adds, “I think I’m gonna put these away now. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Magnus shifts his hands while Alec slides his notes back inside his shoulder bag. And then Magnus shifts his body so that he is turned a little more in towards Alec’s own. He crosses his knees. Alec’s knees are not crossed. But Alec shifts too, turning in as well. Magnus has his hands now clasped together. Alec moves so one of his elbows rests on the back of the bench. Magnus lets his eyes rest on Alec’s for a little while. They seem to be gazing at Magnus’ hands so he unclasps them and turns one upwards. Opening his palm and facing it up towards the sky.

“Alexander?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know if you remember this or not. You saw me...and then later I started to try to explain it. In the bar. When you went back there with Jace...do you remember all that?”

“Yes,” Alec murmurs.

“I used to see Camille,” Magnus says, knowing now why he’s been so nervous; this is what he needs to say. This is what it’s time for. “We went steady for a couple of years and then she decided she needed space and…well, we wanted different things...we still want different things and we will always want different things...I just…I just want to be really clear with you, Alec...I’m bisexual. And Camille and I are not together anymore. We’re friends...and I know what you saw was maybe not what that looked like. But…I just need to tell you this, Alec. I really need to. In case you are thinking that…well...I just never got to fully explain it all to you...and, Alexander, I just really wanted to. I want you to know who I am.”

“Magnus?”

“Yes?”

“Is it okay if I touch you?” Alec whispers.

“Of course it is.”

Alec reaches down for Magnus’ open hand. At first, he just puts his palm face down on it. And then he presses their fingertips together until finally he takes Magnus’ whole hand gently up into his own and he slips it beneath the left lapel of his jacket. Until Magnus can feel something small and hard affixed to the t-shirt he wears underneath. He moves his fingertips to it, shifting the edge of Alec’s jacket while he does. It’s the little enamel pin of the rainbow cupid which Magnus gave him way back on the first day they ever met. He’s worn it. Hidden away but it’s still there, pinned over his heart. Magnus looks up into Alec’s eyes. He knows what he wants to say. But Alec gets there first.

"Is it okay if I kiss you?" he whispers.

"Please," Magnus answers.

Alec leans in.


	17. Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec has his first kiss with Magnus in the park.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the seventeenth prompt on my Bingo card: real witch spells.
> 
> Ohmygod I finally got to this one! Yayy!! I have been looking at this square and just feeling like it was never gonna happen and never gonna get there and now here it is XD
> 
> Thanks again for reading this and I hope you enjoy it <3

There are feelings Alec’s had before now. They are benchmarks. Touching Jace’s hands; that had been one of them. How soft Jace’s hands felt all the times he’d ever let Alec hold them; not just soft surfaces - his skin and his contours - but the way those hands complied with Alec's wants. That had all been very soft too.

Jace had never minded when Alec held his hands. Stroked between his knuckles, or tickled at the ends of his fingertips. Made circles across his opened palms, or just coupled them together sometimes. But Jace had never really held Alec’s hands in return. Alec knew it was true. Alec has always known it’s true.

Not in the ways Alec yearned for his own hands to be held. Not like he’d wanted somebody to always do it all his life. And to hold the rest of his body too, soft like that. Not like Alec wanted another man to. Or wanted another man to let him. Not like Magnus had let him when Alec had leaned in to kiss him. 

Alec’s fingertips find his face first, brushing the soft hairs of stubble he’s let grow out. Feeling their tickle as he walks light fingers down the lines of Magnus’ jaw. All this done while holding him gently. Alec’s thumbs stroking across his cheeks. Little anchors. 

Magnus’ own hand is still beneath his jacket, at his chest. Fingering at what Alec had hidden away there earlier. Only ever dreaming that it could be found like this. And when it was, his heart had pounded harder than he knew it had ever beaten before. 

Alec’s lips touch Magnus’ lips, the softest things Alec’s sure they’ve ever been against. His top lip, like his fingertips, tickling against soft stubble. It’s even more thrilling than standing on the path with the phone. But only until Alec opens his mouth.

Just by a fraction more than he’s had it at, and he feels Magnus do that too. Letting his lower lip inside him just a little, and Alec kneads him there and feels Magnus do it with him. Hands cupping his face now, leaning in further. And feeling hands about his own neck also. 

Those aren’t pushing him away as Jace’s did outside Furman Hall. They’re pulling him closer, they want him. They yearn for him. As much as he’s yearned for them, and they want all that with him - to share it with him - here and now.

Everything in the whole world stops. It’s like the first day they met all over again. The first sight he ever had of Magnus across the park at NYU. Nothing existed except this feeling then. But it is suddenly about so much more than someone he could only ever look at from a distance. From outside.

This kiss is every story Alec’s ever been told about handsome princes and virgin damsels and spell-breaking magic. Every teen movie he’s ever endured where boys kiss girls for the very first time and the world cheers and changes, but Alec’s stays exactly the same. Every time he’s ever yearned to be that girl or princess. Except he wasn't - isn’t - either of those. He was a boy. He is a man. He's Alec. 

And now Alec is here, holding Magnus, kissing Magnus, acknowledging what he needs. Being able to. Giving himself permission to do what his body has always craved. What his heart has always kept a space open for. What his soul has always struggled to reach out to find. In his hands, beneath his mouth. In his embraces. Receiving Magnus’ kisses, here on a park bench. Alec’s not even sure he can stop.

But eventually, he pulls away, breathless. When did he last fill his lungs? How do people breathe while they’re kissing? It wasn’t even a deep kiss, Alec doesn’t think. Only lips and hands upon cheeks and the napes of necks. But he does pull back. Just to inhale.

“Oh my god,” he breathes. “Oh my god.”

“Are you okay?” Magnus whispers. “Just...air. Have air.”

“Yeah,” Alec murmurs. “Oh my god.”

Magnus’ lips look different to before they kissed, plusher. But he doesn’t just know them for their sight anymore. By how they’ve always looked, when he has looked, so curiously at them and wondered, hungrily, what they’d be really like.

“Like a spell,” he murmurs. “A real witch spell…a warlock's...by a real _High Warlock..._ ”

“Alec, I’m just a man,” Magnus says. “Just a guy...just like every other guy-”

“No, you’re not,” Alec urges, smoothing his fingers over his lips. “You are amazing...you amaze me. I can not stop looking at you or thinking about you, Magnus...you are not just a guy. You are by far the most beautiful man that I have ever seen in my whole life.”

Alec knows how those lips feel now. He knows how the curves can fit around his own. And he knows how they make his body feel when they do, so he leans in again for more of that feeling.

It’s different this time though. Alec's surer. But he’s still soft at first, his lips feeling their way to not just what he wants. To not just more of that intoxicating sensation at his skin. Did he ever realize how much he could feel with only his lips? 

Alec wants to be so much nearer to Magnus than he is now. Go deeper. To be inside Magnus. Taste him. His tongue is right on the edge of it, of exploring Magnus just like that. But if he did, would Magnus go there too?

The hand he has at Alec’s chest is still there. Magnus could still push him away, stop all of this if he wanted. And Alec would stop. He leans in closer. But the hand at his chest only softens.

Alec holds Magnus' cheeks and jaw, no more tickles. Tilting his head and kneading much deeper. Opening his mouth much wider. Taking his whole lower lip inside his own this time. Then finally touching the tip of his tongue to him. And tasting him. Tasting Magnus. And he is sweet and clean, like the most thirst-quenching water.

In Alec's ears, there’s nothing but birdsong. And the soft smack of their mouths as they kiss. A midday sun by now on his back. And Magnus still held in his arms.


	18. Baked Apple Bitters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On a second date, Magnus comforts Alec when he becomes upset by an unexpected turn in the topic of their conversation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the eighteenth prompt on my Bingo card: mutilation and rape.
> 
> Trigger warning / sensitive content warning for non-explicit discussions of violence and non-explicit references to rape, mutilation, and murder.
> 
> Please just completely ignore this if needed.
> 
> Thank you for checking it out if you do. I did try to make it sweet and keep the prompt references minimal.

Magnus collects their drinks and starts to wend his way from the cafe counter to a little round wooden table on the ground floor of the Housing Works Bookstore. At the end of their date in the park yesterday, he and Alec agreed to meet here. It was Magnus’ suggestion, just like the park had been.

“These look so pretty,” Alec says smiling, as Magnus sets down a pair of identical tumblers on the little table for two, and takes up the only seat left. Out of sight, their knees touch together but the men don’t shy away from that. “So, what is it? What are we drinking?”

“Guess,” Magnus teases.

“Apple something,” Alec says. “I know it.” He stares at the closest glass and murmurs again, “Apple something.”

“Well, I can’t imagine the huge wheel of apple in it is giving that away at all,” Magnus answers, through a grin. “Is that your final answer, Alexander? Apple something?”

“Should it be? Are we playing a game?”

“Well, we could be.”

“Oh,” Alec says, slowly. “Okay. So, if we’re playing a game then we must be playing for, like, a reward. Right?”

“Hm. Do you like rewards?”

“I might like rewards.”

“Well, what about kisses?” Magnus says. “If I told you we were playing for kisses, would you play for those kinds of rewards?”

Alec chuckles. “Okay. Now I am taking this seriously.”

“My kisses are valuable, Alexander.”

“You are an excellent kisser, Magnus.” 

He gazes across the table at Alec, whose fingers have inched across to his own and are tickling their tips. “Guess,” Magnus urges him again, this time in only a whisper. 

Magnus starts to get that feeling again, of apprehension. He dreads that feeling. It’s not butterflies inside his stomach; not the good kind of excitement, even though that is there too. It’s the bad kind. It’s lightning. These nerves are not just about all of these things that he’s done before but is doing now with Alec for the very first time; these nerves are bigger. And the cause of them is even bigger than that. Scarier to Magnus than just a minor case of second-date jitters. 

It’s the feeling again like he’s losing control. He plans meticulously; he planned the park date and he instigated this one too. Coming here to another place that very intentionally wasn’t the Warlock. He hasn’t allowed himself to think about inviting Alec there since his conversation with Izzy. Even though by then he had bought all that apple juice, once he’d realized Alec liked it so much. But then also realized how innocent Alec still was. Still is. 

These feelings had started before that day of the delivery. When Camille had returned and he had started to remember, in his heart like a muscle memory, what it felt like to be cast aside and left alone when you thought - when you knew - that you were in love.

“Wow,” Alec’s saying. “This smells just like Christmas.”

“Try it.”

Magnus watches him take a small sip, and then a second slightly longer one. 

“Oh my gosh,” Alec’s saying now, licking his lips and sucking gently on his lower one. “It tastes just like a pie. Yeah, like a piece of pie at Christmas.”

“Do you like it?” Magnus asks.

“I love it. What is it?”

”No rewards for you,” Magnus teases again. “If you’re no longer guessing then perhaps I’ll need to charge.”

Alec grins. “I don’t think I need to guess how much,” he murmurs, leaning in so they can kiss across the little table, soft and slow.

“Tonic with baked apple bitters,” Magnus murmurs, his heart still fluttering as Alec draws away.

“Tonic with what?” he asks, looking puzzled.

Magnus chuckles. “Baked apple bitters,” he repeats. “You’ve never tried it?”

“I’ve never even heard of it! Can you even make bitters out of that? Baked apples?”

“You can make bitters out of anything,” Magnus says. “Liquor is just like perfume. Spirits can be infused with just about anything really. So long as people will drink it. I mean, no shame or anything, but-”

“Have you read that book?” Alec asks.

“Book?”

“Perfume,” he says.

“Oh, Suskind?

“Mm-hm.”

“Yes,” Magnus says. “I saw the film as well but I think I much prefer the book.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well,” Magnus starts to wonder, “I guess it probably is because of that. Because of what I was saying before about the spirits. The processes described in that book, I just found those details so interesting. I would really like…oh, I’m rambling now, Alec, forgive me.”

“No, you’re not,” Alec seems to almost hurry to say. “You’re not rambling at all, Magnus, you ask me so much about me all the time. I want to know things about you too. I mean, you told me some things yesterday, remember? Please tell me some more of those things. About you. I love to hear them.”

Magnus swallows. The casual way Alec’s suddenly begun to use certain verbs here is as alarming as the way Magnus just rambled on about himself unchecked like he did. “How was your lecture this afternoon?” he asks, collecting his glass and taking a long sip from it, avoiding Alec’s searching eyes on purpose for a moment. 

Their fingertips are still involved and Alec slides his hand over Magnus’ and settles it palm-down inside the upturned curve. But Alec doesn’t press him. He does take a minute to answer Magnus though. Takes so long that Magnus starts to feel it’s too long. He looks up again at Alec, worried. Alec’s eyes are fixed on their hands. And there’s a curious expression across his face. His features are veiled by a dark introspection Magnus doesn’t think he’s ever yet seen him wear.

“Alec?” he asks. “Are you okay? I didn’t mean to-”

“I’m okay,” he breathes, dipping his head and still looking down at their hands. Tracing his forefinger over the lines of Magnus’s open palm. “You just reminded me of it.”

“Reminded you of what? Alexander?”

“It was heavy.” Alec looks up. 

“What was?” Magnus murmurs, noting the damp in his eyes. “Your lecture?”

Alec nods. “Sometimes, like…I don’t realize how lucky I am, you know? Like, for all my stupid hang-ups…like, for all the times I think I have it hard or something. Shit, I don’t even know anything about what that is like. What’s actually difficult. Struggling every day to just, like, leave your house. Finding reasons to keep going…we have this clinic coming up for Criminal Justice, right?”

“Okay.”

“And I really wanna do it but I don’t know if I am cut out for dealing with families of victims of crime, Magnus…ah, now I am the one rambling again. I’m so sorry-”

“Alec, it’s fine,” Magnus says, closing his hand around the fingers Alec still has inside his palm, squeezing to reassure him. “Whatever it is, you can talk about it. I can see that you are upset.”

“I’m not upset, it’s just…it’s just heavy, it’s…”

“What happened?”

“They brought a mother and a father in. For fuck’s sake, they brought them _in_ , Magnus. Like, it wasn’t just all in some photocopied reader or a bunch of pictures on Google Slides. And those people talked about it all to us. Firsthand. Firsthand accounts. About what they went through in a courtroom. They run a support and awareness foundation for survivors. And families of victims of sexual and domestic violence. They…there were pictures of their daughter…before, and…ph-photos they showed in a courtroom as evidence. And they talked about what their life had become without her. They don’t have her anymore. Guy who did it served his time and passed away of old age and twenty years later these people are still alive. And every day they live with memories of those pictures of her, I just can’t...but, anyway, in the courtroom...I mean, you lose someone and then...what you have to go through in a courtroom is just...how do these people…how do the people even just representing these people fucking do that? Compartmentalize? How do they not break down? Like, I can’t even imagine that. I don’t think I could ever do that, Magnus. Just to represent them. To not absorb all that, to be that strong that you could stand there, day after day, and listen to factual accounts of somebody’s rape, mutilation, and murder. And look at...pictures. Photographic evidence of it. Over and over and not crack up because you are their defender. Their voice. All I would think about is, like…if something like that were ever to happen to Isabelle-”

He doesn’t actually say the last word, just mouths it. Like all the breath in his lungs is gone. Alec stops there and just looks at Magnus. His eyes are wide and wet and his lower lip, Magnus can see, is trembling. 

Magnus sets down his drink. And with both his hands he takes the one Alec has had on his and he cups it inside his own. Rubbing his thumbs over his skin. Around the thumb joint and across the back of his palm. Over and over again until Alec’s lower lip stops trembling.

“Did they warn you before this?” Magnus asks quietly.

“I knew what the topic of the lecture was,” Alec answers. “I saw the foundation was presenting content.”

“No,” Magnus says gently. “I mean, did they warn you of the content? Actually say that there was sensitive content and they were going to show it to you? Show you pictures?”

“Oh, yeah. Yeah, they did do that,” Alec says. “Sorry. But, you know, you sit there. In the lecture. Or the class. Or whatever it is. And you think that you’ll be fine. You know? And then…well, you know what? You’re just not. Suddenly you’re just not. You’re not fine at all. But you can’t unsee it.”

“Alec, how long ago did this happen?”

“I came straight here,” he says. “We got out, I just got on my bike and rode straight up here to the bookstore.”

Something inside himself starts talking to Magnus again. He tries to quieten it. But it’s not easy. “What are you doing after this, Alec?”

“Well, I’m going home, I guess,” he answers.

Magnus swallows. “Will you be okay there? Would you like me to go back there with you? I'm worried about you. I don't wish to leave you upset.”

“No,” Alec says. “You can _not_ come over.”

Magnus blinks.

“I mean...ah, wait.” Alec shifts in his seat. “I meant-”

“No, no, it’s okay. I do understand. I do not mean to rush you at all, I’m so sorry-”

“Magnus, I’m not saying I don’t...just not _there_. Okay?”

All of Magnus freezes save for the heart that's just shot to his mouth. All he ever planned yesterday was to walk, hold hands, and watch birds with Alec, not tongue for hours on a bench, and now suddenly, here in the bookstore, it feels like he's on the verge of losing the plot again. Of doing much more with Alec than is safe at the moment for Magnus.

“Maybe we should just stay here for a bit,” Alec says.

“It’s quiet enough?” Magnus asks.

“It’s not quiet at all here, Magnus.”

He bites the inside of his lip. And then he just asks him. Magnus just asks Alec over. “Would you like to come back to the bar? On Thursday evenings, only the front of the courtyard is open. We try to keep people inside for the bands. Give them an audience. So out the back, it’s very quiet. For as long as you wanted, we could just sit out there and talk. If you wanted. And...well, I could call you a cab to get home later on if you needed. Something that would fit your bicycle.”

“You live there, right?”

“At the Warlock, yes,” Magnus says. “Upstairs. But, Alec, I want to be clear that I am not asking you up there. I meant it when I said that I do not mean to rush you and... well, because you seem upset and here is not quiet and I-”

“Don’t wish to leave me upset,” Alec finishes.

“That’s right,” Magnus says.

“So, bar only.”

“Bar only.”


	19. Gift

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Warlock's courtyard, Alec and Magnus get pretty cosy, but not quite too cosy yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the nineteenth prompt on my bingo card: offends censor.
> 
> I used the banned book citation for this one because the doc is back and I’ve missed looking up things in there to include in recent chapters since the hiatus so glad to be able to go there again.
> 
> Thanks for checking this out and I hope you enjoy it <3

Alec follows Magnus through the tall front doors. The warm air of the Warlock is hot on his already flushed cheeks. They are warm from his ride and warmer still from the embrace he and Magnus shared on reuniting out the front of the narrow five-storey building curbside; it was way too far to walk from SoHo so Magnus caught a cab back across the bridge to Brooklyn.

The bar is busy and Alec is nervous again. And as though Magnus knows it, his hand finds Alec’s as soon as they’re off the street. To reassure him and to guide him through the dense crowd of people inside. 

As they move down the counter, Magnus and a woman pulling beers exchange warm but cursory greetings with each other as they pass. Muttering things between themselves that Alec can’t quite catch above the sounds of other conversations. And somewhere, further away, a soundcheck; the spit of amps turned up too high and iffy paradiddles on a drum kit. And above all that, the rich thrums of the thickest bass strings, the reverb hitting Alec deep inside his chest. Further stoking his apprehension. 

He glances that way, towards a space he’s only ever seen closed where a band is now preparing for a set. There, he sees the woman Magnus referred to yesterday as _Camille_. She smiles at Alec from across the room and he smiles back. And it seems to help his nerves somehow, anticipation flooding up to take him away on the crest of its wave instead.

When they reach the courtyard, a cool early-October evening is dropping. Magnus only has a finger curled around one of Alec’s, now they’ve left the noise and the chaos of the busy bar behind them. As Magnus had suggested in the bookstore, it is indeed quiet here. He leads Alec through a narrow passage, past restrooms. And then around a corner where the area opens out again, populated by an odd assortment of makeshift furniture. In the furthest corner is a sheltered awning, beneath which a broad wicker bench is loaded with mismatched cushions. In front of that is a cast iron chiminea. And Magnus begins to set it.

“This is cute,” Alec says, noting the proliferation of red and gold and black across the patterns on the cushions first, before fixing his eyes on Magnus; watching him take out several tan-coloured briquettes from a green and white bag next to the fireplace. He arranges them carefully inside its mouth.

“It’s a very versatile space,” Magnus offers. “Too cold by the time it’s winter so we pack it all away but especially during the fall and spring, the fire is really nice. And the smell is enticing, keeps people here. And we can do events out here too. Screenings through the summer. They’re very popular.”

“You mentioned a movie when you called me,” Alec remembers.

“I did,” Magnus murmurs, striking a match and touching the flame to several low places in the pyre. “That day I met your sister...we’re hosting another on Monday.”

“For NYU?”

“Well, for Raphael’s group there, yes. He and another old friend, a lecturer. They’re my only connections at NYU. The only people there I do favours for. But yes, it is for Raphael’s group.”

“Did you used to date him?” Alec asks quietly.

“Who?” Magnus asks, turning rather sharply to look at him although his eyes are not cold, just curious, Alec thinks. They’re both standing near the fire now, watching the first flames.

“Raphael,” Alec says.

Magnus smiles and steps towards him and Alec feels his heart leap in the way it’s started to every time Magnus is within arms reach. Alec slips his hands around his waist and feels Magnus’ hands slide up over the front of his t-shirt. “Oh, goodness no,” he says gently. “Not my type at all. And I am not his.”

He lifts his mouth and Alec meets it with a soft kiss. 

“What did you talk about with Izzy?” Alec murmurs.

“You, mostly,” Magnus admits. “I had...some questions.”

“Like what?”

“You really want to know?”

“Only if you want to tell me. You don’t have to.”

“Most of the questions I had were about you and Jace.”

Unsure of what to say to that - he hasn't thought of Jace in a little while - Alec starts to finger the hard edges of the belt Magnus wears beneath his shirt and vest. It feels studded.

“Alexander?”

“Yes?”

His hands are still against Alec’s chest, his thumbs brushing lightly at the weave of his t-shirt. And Alec has to work hard then to make himself remember what they agreed to, while they were still in the bookstore.

“At Housing Works, before you arrived,” Magnus continues, “well, I hope you won’t mind it but I bought you something.” 

“The drink?”

“No,” Magnus smiles. “I bought you a present, Alec. A real one. I wanted to give it to you there but it didn’t seem appropriate. After you got upset. But maybe now it is.” He motions to the seat. “If you’re feeling okay, could I give it to you? Here-”

Magnus sits down on the outdoor seat and coaxes Alec with him as the fire starts to crackle from inside the chiminea.

“It’s completely okay if you don’t like it,” he murmurs, pulling from somewhere a small paper-wrapped package shaped like a book. “The cover always catches my eye...the colours and tones and contrasts...just one of those things I always see on the counter when I’m in there, you know? _Impulse buys_ , I guess, is what they’re called-”

Alec touches his hand and Magnus hushes. “Whatever it is, Magnus, I know I’ll love it. Everything you have ever given to me I’ve loved. Everything. The pin. And the drinks. And the kisses.” Alec has one hand on the package and the other still on Magnus. Their eyes are met. Magnus still seems cautious though so Alec unwraps the package. “Oh,” he murmurs.

“Have you heard of it?” 

“Persepolis?” Alec asks, opening the little graphic novel. “Yes. I’ve never read it though. One of those things you know of but don’t really know yet, I guess.”

Alec feels Magnus inch a little closer. Feels his warm thigh press firmer to his own as they sit together on the two-seater, the fire’s warmth beginning to reach out to Alec’s knees and warm them too. It’s so cosy. 

“I thought maybe you would like it because it’s sort of political and social,” Magnus explains. “And when you’ve told me about your study, and the things you do and think about, well it sounds as though those things interest you. And, as I said, I just saw it sitting there, and while I was waiting, I…well, it just made me think a little more of you, Alec. I was thinking of you anyway, but-”

“If it made you think of me, Magnus, I will cherish it,” he says. “I really will.”

“You might read it and feel different,” Magnus chuckles. “It’s sort of sad.”

“No,” Alec murmurs, slowly turning over the little book’s pages. “It’s beautiful...these drawings are beautiful” - he turns to look at Magnus, who has leant in even closer now and is looking at the pages too - “as beautiful as you are.”

He places a kiss on Magnus’ cheek. Feels Magnus snuggle into it a little, so Alec lets his lips linger there for longer than he should really need to, to place just one single kiss on somebody’s cheek. 

Then, still, with the little book open in his lap, Magnus turns his face and Alec can place another kiss to his lips. His hands leave the book and they take up Magnus instead. The fire still warming his knees as he starts to forget all about the gift and instead about the man who gave it to him. And what it feels like to have him this close again. Beneath his mouth and in his arms now as they lay down on the broad bench together. Rearranging their knees a bit, and other limbs too. 

Alec’s kisses on Magnus start to trail down his neck. To where his skin disappears beneath his collared shirt. His hands feel the lean muscles of his shoulders and his triceps. They curve around his chest and the nook of his waist. His slender hips and the length of his warm thigh. Feeling, as they go, the various textures of the fabrics he wears. Desperate to know what he feels like beneath them. And for the first time, at a time he's been with Magnus and not just a time he's imagined it, Alec knows he wants to know that. He’s no idea how to ask to find out; it's one thing to ask to touch someone's hand or to kiss their mouth. Those are regular things, aren't they? But how do you ask for more than that? How do you ask to fuck somebody? Do you ask that? Do you ask something else? All he knows now is that he wants so much to ask. 

“Ah, my god, I just want to be so near you,” Alec murmurs, still with his mouth beneath Magnus’ jaw. Kissing the soft skin beneath his ear and smelling some kind of heady cologne on him. And whatever it is he uses on his hair, to style it. Alec fingers at the buttons of Magnus' vest. “Just to be so fucking near you, Magnus.”

Alec hears Magnus exhale, and feels his chest fall and then rise again beneath his own as they lie together, Alec still leant across him. And the breaths all shake and just the sound of them doing that spurs Alec on. He presses the flat of his tongue against the skin he’s been kissing. Tasting it, like he’s tasted his lips before. And feeling Magnus’ lips on his temple. Hearing more of those breaths which catch in his throat as they’re expelled. And then Alec hears his own name. Said only in the way that Magnus can say it. In the way that spurs him too. “ _Alexander_.”

“You’re so fucking beautiful, Magnus,” Alec breathes. “My god-”

“Alec...wait.”

He lifts his mouth as Magnus shifts beneath him, Magnus’ hands on his chest at first, then finding the hand Alec still has on his buttons. Alec’s face grows hot. But not from his amour. Or from the fire. He draws away. Half kneeling on the bench and putting empty space between them. And it’s not until then, now he’s vertical, that he notices the bulge in his jeans and the one that’s emerged beneath Magnus’ leathers as they’ve been grinding. 

“Ah, fuck, I’m so sorry, I-”

“Don’t be,” Magnus says. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You don’t want to and I-”

“I assure you, Alexander, that I absolutely fucking do want to,” he says, his eyes as wide as Alec’s ever seen them.


	20. Catarina

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A timely arrival in the courtyard leads Magnus to a confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the twentieth prompt on my bingo card: unmarried characters.
> 
> Trigger warning for discussions of / references to children, raising children and parenting.
> 
> Used another banned book citation for this one.
> 
> Thanks for checking it out and I hope you enjoy <3
> 
> Five more to go! Holy heck XD

“Out here?” Alec’s whispering. “You wanna do it out here?”

Magnus opens his mouth. He knows the answer. But that is the moment Catarina also chooses to clear her throat and say, “Food’s up.”

Alec springs off the bench, taking half the cushions with him. Magnus takes his time. To breathe. And to check himself. He smooths his clothes and makes sure things are all still buttoned up and zipped up; Alec was certainly ardent. It’s getting more and more difficult not to be, for both of them. And even though Cat has seen Magnus in more compromising positions than this one before, he still wants to stay in control. They’re not upstairs yet.

“Well, this is awkward,” Magnus confesses, rising up off the bench with about as much grace as one can do after being sprung heavy petting.

Catarina cocks an eyebrow and mutters, “Says the man who literally begged me on arrival to come out here and discover him with his new-“

“Cat, have you met Alec?” Magnus says loudly. “He’s studying Law at NYU.” Then he drops his voice significantly. “And that is not what I did at all, Catarina. You know I don’t beg.”

“You know it’s a pleasure to have you owe me favors,” she parries. 

Magnus gives her a look. And she gives him one too. 

“Oh, fine,” he says quietly. He eyes the tapas and jug of gin and apple she’s just brought out on a tray. “ _Thank you, Catarina_.”

“You’re welcome,” she accepts, stepping toward Alec now and offering him her hand, and they shake as Magnus watches on. Undeniably nervous. “Hello, honey. It’s a real pleasure to meet you. You’re warm enough out here? I can smell you boys got the fire going. Madzie loves the chiminea too. Always the first thing she gravitates to. Especially in the fall.”

“Madzie?” Alec asks, looking puzzled.

“My daughter,” Catarina says. 

“Oh, you have a daughter?” Alec acknowledges. 

To Magnus’s surprise, Alec doesn’t seem nervous at all about the sudden turn toward the topic of children. And the realization makes his heart swell.

“How old is she?” Alec’s asking.

“Just turned six,” Catarina answers.

“I have a little brother,” Alec shares. “His name is Max. He’s older than your daughter though. Nearly eleven now. But I remember when he was about that age. He could believe in just about anything. I still totally remember convincing him, this one time, when he was in kindergarten, that if he really wanted to, he could grow up to marry the tree out the front of our house.”

Magnus snorts. “He could grow up to marry the what?” 

“The tree out the front of our house,” Alec repeats, grinning.

“Why?” Magnus says, bewildered. 

“Well, I dunno, why not?” Alec answers, still grinning. 

“Oh, why can’t a little boy marry a tree if he wants to?” Catarina adds, chuckling. “You know, I think kids that age just think about the things they see. Try to piece them together. Compare themselves to other kids too. Another way they try to figure things out. Madzie is obsessed with _Tarzan and Jane._ Now, I don’t know where in the hell she got that one from. We definitely don’t have any _Tarzan and Jane_ going on in our house, that’s for sure. But I think she must’ve seen it at her school. Or maybe she thinks it’s like _Dora the Explorer_.”

“Oh, Max used to love that show,” Alec comments. “ _Baby jaguar_...”

“That’s not _Dora_ , Alexander,” Magnus corrects him, quietly. “That is _Diego_.”

“Ah,” Alec says, chuckling. “Secret _Diego_ fan, huh? Same universe, Magnus. Same universe.”

“Is it?”

“Yep,” Catarina confirms, smiling at Alec. “I like you, you know your kids’ stuff. I might need to remember that one day...so anyway, Madzie keeps on asking me if Tarzan and Jane are married. I don’t know! I tell her I don’t think they're married! Why does that even matter? Maybe it’s because I’m not married. Kids think about that stuff, I guess. Maybe she’s comparing herself, now that she’s in school, and seeing more parents and different kinds of families, to ours. See, Madzie’s adopted. And I am on my own. Plus she doesn’t see her biological mom or dad so it’s just us. But that is why I bring her around here such a fair bit. Magnus is an excellent uncle.”

He feels his face flush.

“Anyway, I’m gonna have to leave you boys to it. Got a bar full of people in there. And a business partner who apparently has his hands rather full out here this evening, so” - she gives Magnus another look - “Play it safe, won’t you?” 

They both flush at that as Catarina leaves the courtyard for the inside of the bar. Collecting the tray she brought their food and drink out on and taking it back inside with her. Magnus loads his arms with the little dishes of tapas and Alec follows him back to the fire. Jug and glasses in hand. They arrange things on the ground by the bench and settle down together to graze.

“So, what is this one?” Alec asks.

They’ve shared several minutes of nothing but eating. Magnus chewing slowly between sips of gin and apple. Feeling the warmth of the fire and observing Alec’s chest rise and fall from where he’s ended up against it. His knees crossed in toward Alec’s and one of Alec’s long arms slung around his shoulders. Short of being cold, as Catarina had suggested they might be, it’s so warm here Magnus could easily fall asleep. Especially now his belly is filling up. Magnus hadn’t realized until now how hungry he’d been and it appears as though neither had Alec.

“This one is croquettes,” Magnus answers in response to Alec’s question. “Mac and cheese.”

He watches Alec take a bite. Slowly, he chews and nods and leans back, closing his eyes. “S’good,” he says through the mouthful. Then swallows. “I could eat a hundred of these.”

“I could order you a hundred,” Magnus says, sleepily. “They’re popular. We keep a lot on hand.”

“Where do you make them?” Alec asks. “You must have a kitchen down here somewhere, huh?”

“Upstairs,” Magnus says. “The floor directly above this, we have a little one up there. One chef only, or two on a Thursday. Busiest night for food. Plus me or Cat if they need another pair of hands.”

“That must get to being a lot,” Alec says. “Like, doing downstairs and out here. And then running a kitchen too?”

“Yes,” Magnus says. “Yes, it is. I love it though. Like, I don’t know really who I’d be without this. It’s been my dream to establish the Warlock. And, one day, well…there’s much more I’d like to do with it. Not just a refurbishment, like perhaps the courtyard needs, but a second business upstairs. I know exactly what it will be, I can picture it. And I have tried to get it off the ground before now, you know? But I just can’t seem to get it done. Do you know that feeling? For about a year, I’ve felt kind of stalled with all the plans I had when I first bought the building six years ago, I could see it even then. But it just keeps flitting away...Alec?”

“Mm.”

“About before?”

“Mm?”

“I want you to be sure, okay?”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

“I want you to be sure about me.”

“Magnus,” he says, shifting as much as he can beneath what is no doubt the heavy weight of Magnus’ sleepy head on his chest. “I am so sure about you.”

“What I want is not as important as what you want...okay?”

“Of course it is. What are you talking about? Oh my god, of course it is-”

“As soon as I saw you, I knew.”

“Knew?”

“Knew...but it's hard to let it go. It stays with you. And it’s not always a good way in which it stays with you. You might stay friends but maybe that just makes it worse. It won’t undo it. You’re still changed because of it. A little more withdrawn. And your heart is just that little bit thicker. Alexander, you are not someone I wanna just...do you understand?”

“Magnus...no. I-I don’t...are you okay?”

“Alexander, you are special to me,” he whispers. “But I know from experience that people can’t always choose if they’re the ones thrown away or not. I need you to be ready for that. For things neither of us can control.”

“Magnus, I told you, I am-”

“Alec, it scares me so much,” Magnus whispers.

“Huh? It...scares you that I’m ready?”

“No,” he whispers again. “It scares me that I am. It scares me that I do want to take you upstairs and just be with you. I thought it was me who was waiting for you, Alexander. I thought it was you who would need that. But it’s not. It’s me. It’s me who needs that.”

“Magnus, that’s fine,” Alec says, putting his lips to his forehead. And saying the next words with his mouth still pressed softly against it. “I’ll wait for you. I won’t go anywhere. Got really nowhere to go anyway. But why would I need to? What is the point of being somewhere without you?”

Alec draws Magnus’ whole body in toward his own then. And Magnus feels so safe to be so near to him. Like he could say more. Almost anything. Reveal almost everything. Say to Alec things like what he started to think back in the bookstore. And hear those things said back and not be scared by them.

Magnus falls asleep in Alec’s arms like that, and he dreams. Of being led up the stairs. Of being snugged between sheets. Kissed and held and told how much he’s loved. And Magnus dreams he can say that back to Alec. Because he’s ready to say it.


	21. Flat White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As he reflects on a lecture, Alec also reflects on the way things ended up with Magnus last night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the twenty-first prompt on my card: miscegenation / interracial relationships.
> 
> Sensitive content warning for angst, discussions of and references to racist aspects of law in regards to sex, relationships and marriage, and for a mention of verbal racial abuse directed at an unnamed original character.
> 
> Please avoid if necessary.
> 
> This has easily been the hardest chapter of this to write so far. Not only because the original prompt was so loaded (and they revised it after the hiatus hence I included both the old and new one as the impetus for this) but also because I just could not decide how to work in more plot, as well as address the prompt. So I hope this is enough at this point.
> 
> So some further notes about the themes and the prompts...
> 
> There are a lot of things actually that I read as research for this to try and generate ideas for how on earth to do this one and in the end, I just decided to put them into Alec's lecture notes again. So what I've done is footnoted where the articles are referenced in case anyone wants to follow them up and read more. I have zero legal knowledge I'm just making this whole thing up but I feel like I need to put the real things in if they are based on real things.
> 
> 1 [Visit the marriage licences case study here.](https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-us-canada-49708880)[return to text]
> 
> 2 [Visit the Melissa Murray podcast here.](https://www.aclu.org/podcast/marriage-tool-white-supremacy-ep71) (trigger warning / sensitive content warning for discussions of non-con and historical mentions of racist terminology)[return to text]
> 
> 3 [Visit the Guardian article here.](https://www.google.com.au/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/education/2020/jun/10/white-guilt-on-its-own-wont-fix-racism-decolonising-britains-schools)[return to text]
> 
> Thank you for checking this out again <3

Alec thanks the barista and takes his flat white to a table outside Furman Hall. On Friday mornings he usually has a full hour between Constitutional and Family Law lectures so he spends it here, reviewing either his laptop notes or anything he’s scrawled across handouts. Which they’re sometimes given in hard copy form at the beginning of lectures.

And they were given plenty of handouts today. Among them, historical articles on the history of anti-miscegenation laws in the United States, a 2019 case study on three couples challenging the requirement to identify race on their Virginian marriage licenses[1], and a transcript of a talk that one of their first-year lecturers had given nearly a year ago now at the Brooklyn Public Library[2]. So all that is why Alec only has thirty minutes break-time this morning. He pulls his laptop out of his bag.

Sometimes there are no discussions at all at the end of lectures. Even the students who always ask questions sometimes just have nothing to say. The Human Rights lecture Alec attended at the start of last week, with Detective Garroway on bullying, had been like that. Although Alec had definitely also not had his mind on what was going on during eighty percent of that. So perhaps the last of it wasn’t as bad as the earlier parts. And maybe discussion had unfolded but he just simply hadn’t brought enough wits along with him to listen to anymore on local civil rights laws that day. Which was actually true. He remembers that day pretty well.

Alec flips up the screen on his laptop. He’d left his notes just laid across the keyboard. He lifts them off and starts to scan the grainy, photocopied pages between sips of his coffee. He seems to have underlined a lot of terms on the first few pages. But towards the back half, as the discussions in the hall had gotten heated, he’s annotated less and less; too caught up in just listening to the arguments. And processing all they might mean.

Sometimes that happened too. Which was why the recordings were really great. Although they always stopped at the hour. So a lot of what had ensued at the end of the presentation would not have been captured. Alec had therefore stayed until the very end of the debates; the entire extra thirty minutes it had taken for post-lecture analysis to fully unfold until eventually time had been called so a second-year lecture could start.

On those final pages of notes are just scribbles, really. No coherent thoughts, just tangles of mess. He vaguely remembers making these at points in the open floor time. Like when a girl had broken down while talking about her own mixed heritage, and racial slurs directed at every living generation of her family. Someone else had wanted to talk about how historical legal justifications for interracial unions were still a modern-day tool of white supremacy, and another person had pointed to the whole idea of mandating the identification of race as unconstitutional. All of which Alec supposed were linked but the emotion in the room at that point had left him feeling hopeless. And unable to express exactly why. He hated the counter-productivity of feeling that. He hated feeling like some sort of victim when these conversations were not about him at all. When there were real victims standing up and self-identifying in the very same room as him. And there he was just sitting scribbling like some ineffectual moron. One who’d never make a meaningful difference to any of it. Just another part of the problem. 

He thumbs further into the hard copy notes to an article published very recently by the Guardian[3], which again they hadn’t paused on for very long, but which Alec had noted for a term in its heading he didn’t fully understand; white guilt. As he scans the beginning, Alec notes the author's emphasis on responses in education to present-day racism in the UK. More pertinently though, Alec notes the way the journalist points to white guilt as dangerous. And he thinks of the lecture then that he’d recalled parts of for Magnus, last week on the phone. About systemic racism in the justice system. White male judges sitting on benches with not enough innate understanding, no matter how much re-education they were supported to do, of the ramifications of passive forms of racism.

So is that what his feeling of hopelessness in the lecture had actually been? He wonders it. Was that part of his own white guilt? And what of his scrawling in margins when debate in a room drew attention to his own white privilege? Was that guilt too? But maybe that was also like the anger referred to in the article. Feelings came and went but it was action that really counted. Listening to the stories. Learning. And calling out racism. And to link those actions to feelings, as they ebbed and flowed, that was what was dangerous. Because it meant those actions might stop. If the feelings did. Or if all Alec ever did was bury his head. When things got uncomfortable. As though discomfort - inconvenience - were just a storm that could pass. And skies would get brighter. That was a privileged person's response. Because it could be for someone like Alec. For others though, the stories and the storms never ceased.

Alec stares at one scribble in particular. It’s a border he’s tried to draw around a paragraph. Spiked like the border on the cover of the book Magnus gave him last night. He’d remembered to collect it from the courtyard. When Magnus had finally woken there. And the band had finished and people were starting to leave the bar. And Catarina was closing it up.

“Shall I call you a cab?” Magnus had asked him.

“I’ll be fine,” Alec had said. “Got my bike still out the front, remember?“

“What if something happens to you on your way home in the dark?” Magnus had asked. “I’d never forgive myself for letting you ride. After half a jug of gin and juice. Do you even have lights?”

“I do have lights on my bike, yes, front and back,” Alec had said. And then he’d smiled and teased, “But what if something happens to you? On the way from here to...you know.”

Magnus had teased him too. “On the way from here to my bed?”

“Yes,” Alec had whispered. "On the way from here to there."

“You could chaperone me,” Magnus had suggested. “I’m very sleepy though so you might need to carry me too, Alexander.”

Alec had chuckled. “Carry you up a flight of stairs? Are you kidding me?”

“Four flights, actually.”

“Oh my god, no.”

Magnus had looked very affronted so Alec had kissed him. And then Alec had said very quietly, “But maybe I could walk you up, Magnus. If you'd let me.”

Alec sighs, his lecture notes still in his hand, at the table he sits at now outside Furman Hall. The last third of his flat white growing cold in the cup. He starts to scribble again between paragraphs in his notes. After a little while, the scribbles form things. Little words that somehow become phrases. Ones he hadn’t said when he had kissed Magnus goodnight at the door to his apartment, up two flights of stairs on the third floor. That’s as far as they’d gone. And just after that, Magnus had invited Alec back to the Warlock on Monday. To the next movie screening. And Alec had said _yes_. But he is still deciding on whether or not to actually go.


	22. Overnight Bag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having not spoken to him since last Thursday, Magnus hopes Alec hasn't changed his mind about coming along to this afternoon's movie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the twenty-second prompt on my bingo card: equality.
> 
> Trigger warning / sensitive content warning for references to pregnancy and surrogacy in this chapter.
> 
> There's just so much plot right now *covers eyes* so I hope the prompt comes through strong enough.
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it <3

It’s mid-afternoon on Monday and Magnus, Catarina and Raphael have just finished setting up for one of the last outdoor Queer Occult Society film screenings of the season. Posters are up. The projector is running. Deck chairs and menus are ready. The movie is about to start and just one thing is missing.

“Still not here, huh?” Raphael comments, on his way back out to the courtyard.

Magnus stands alone behind the Warlock’s bar. Alec is not here yet.

“Honey, maybe he’s just late,” Catarina offers.

“I just don’t think he’s coming at all,” Magnus murmurs. “He hasn’t called.”

“Have you called him?”

Magnus doesn’t answer at first. A poster has caught his attention. A detail depicting a close-up section of wallpaper. The print on the paper is a half-drop repeat of a red Chinese symbol on a black background. Through its center, a large section of the paper has been torn away to reveal a rainbow print. What results is a picture suggesting that the two palettes and patterns are of equal visual importance, both the Chinese and the queer. But it’s also as though one print has been used to try to paper over the other one. In an effort to conceal it. To hide what’s really there. The rainbow.

“He’s not out,” Magnus whispers, as it dawns on him that perhaps in his own quests to protect his own heart, he may have somehow neglected Alec’s. And consequently scared him away.

Magnus has tried so hard to be careful over the last few weeks. To take things really slow. But what if he’s slipped up? To Magnus, their desire for each other is clear in the moments they’re together. Or whenever they do talk over the phone. But Alec’s not even told him explicitly anything of his own sexuality. What if he’s decided he can’t attend things like this, even when invited? That it’s too much to be out? Magnus’ stomach drops through the floor as a memory of being with Alec in the bookstore returns; how he was so quick to refuse the offer Magnus made to walk him home.

“Go outside,” Catarina’s urging, squeezing his hand. “Take a seat out there. I’ll close up the front and fix us a drink. And we’ll watch the movie together, okay? But listen, I know you. You think this is cold feet. But I have met this man too, Magnus. You know I have. Sometimes people are just plain late and that is all they are.”

Magnus gives her a little smile, feeling a lump start to form in his throat. And a hot prickle at the back of his eyes begins. He’s unable to say a whole lot now for fear of those tears spilling over. 

Magnus slips quietly into the courtyard, where most seats are now occupied. But there are two near the back still empty so he takes the nearest one. Almost as soon as he does sit down though, he feels a hand squeeze his shoulder and a warm cheek against his own. Neither belongs to Catarina.

“Sorry,” Alec whispers into his ear.

“Oh my god,” Magnus murmurs, turning around to cup Alec’s cheek. And then to kiss him, and start to take in the whole sight of him. His face is flushed, his hair a little mussed from sweat and breeze. And on the lapel of his jacket this time - not hidden away today, as it had been in the park - is the pin Magnus gave him. Magnus lowers his hand to it. Touching the little cupid’s _chibi_ eyes as he gazes into Alec’s own. “Alexander...oh my god...I honestly thought you weren’t coming.”

“Lecture went overtime again,” Alec whispers, kneeling down next to Magnus’ chair and unslinging from his shoulders a large backpack.

Magnus looks at it curiously. It’s not the shoulder bag or the small backpack he’s seen Alec carry before. He wonders why Alec’s brought this one today, and considers asking about it. But Alec is sitting down now and tucking the bag between his boots. And then he’s leaning over and kissing Magnus again. Taking his hand, and holding it. And only letting go when Catarina arrives, a little while later, with two tall glasses of gin and juice.

“It wasn’t cold feet,” Magnus whispers into her ear as she passes him both drinks. 

“Well, don’t say I didn’t tell you,” Catarina whispers back.

Magnus beams at her before she disappears elsewhere. He passes Alec his drink and Alec shifts his chair even closer to Magnus’ and the toes of their boots touch.

“Have you seen this movie?” Magnus asks as Alec’s boot starts to rub against his own.

“Nope,” Alec says. “I like it so far though. This piano music is pretty.”

Magnus smiles as Alec takes a hold of his hand again and starts to feel his way around the rings Magnus has chosen to wear on his fingers today. 

“Well, this is called _All in my Family_ ,” Magnus says quietly. “It’s a short and sweet thing about the filmmaker, a little bit sardonic. His relatives are...stressful. He’s starting a family with his partner. They live in New York. They’re having two babies with surrogates...see?”

“Oh yeah,” Alec murmurs, looking up at the screen where Magnus is pointing. 

“I love the way the couple is treated with so much dignity by the medical practitioners and the surrogacy agencies in this film...and then...see here? He introduces his relatives. They live in China...an extremely traditional family. Like, most of the film is set to this hi-jinx jazz music because honestly, what his parents are saying to him is horrible in some of these parts...but really this movie, I think, is about his relatives’ journey to getting over their own homophobia. So it’s good they show it...learn that both their children, not just their son, are people. And that they need to let them be those people...so there’s this thing about control, letting go of control...I like this movie for that a lot too...reminds me a bit of my own family.”

“Ah,” Alec murmurs. “Right.”

“I don’t see that much of them,” Magnus confides, glancing at Alec.

“Are they in China?” he asks.

“Oh, no, they’re here,” Magnus answers. “I was raised here. My parents took me to Hong Kong and the mainland when I was a baby though. To visit my grandparents. But I don’t remember a thing about any of that.”

“I was apparently taken to France as a baby,” Alec says. “But I don’t remember a thing about that either.” 

“Are you French?” Magnus asks. 

“Nope,” Alec says. “I was born here. My parents are just obsessed with Europe.”

“I was born in Costa Rica.”

“Oh, really?”

“Mm-hm.”

They start to snuggle foreheads then. And to pay less and less attention to the film. Although there are some moments when Magnus squeezes Alec’s hand. Nervous as to how he’ll react to some things. But at those times, Alec seems to engage with what’s being said in the film with interest. As though he’s taking it in and really thinking about it. And Magnus’ heart swells every time, in the same way that it had last Thursday night when Alec had asked Catarina about Madzie. And shared the story about his own little brother, Max.

“Guess that’s why I went back to Europe, later on,” Alec is murmuring now. “To see what the hell I missed out on. Plus, because they approved of that...I think I mentioned this one time before?”

“Yes, you did,” Magnus says. “The first day we met.”

“Think you would like to go back and visit China someday? To see, now you’re grown, whatever it is they showed you?”

“Maybe,” Magnus murmurs. “I don’t think they took me there for my benefit though. It was for family.”

Alec leans in to kiss him again then. And the last parts of the film slip past them in a similar way to this. The pair murmuring back and forth at moments, between sips of gin. But mostly they just touch lips and hands and boot-toes and knees until the end. When people start to get up and stretch and Raphael puts music on. And everyone starts to mingle as chairs go away and the courtyard becomes a little dance floor.

“Do you dance?” Magnus asks, pulling Alec in by the waist, and fairly sure he knows the answer, just based on the way Alec’s ears have turned so pink at their tips. He seems unsure what to do with his limbs. Apart from using them to collect his bag from the ground, and sling it over his shoulders again. As though it could save him from this situation.

“Um,” he stutters, slipping his hands around Magnus’ waist while Magnus presses himself to Alec, trying to coax just a little sway from him. But conceding that perhaps this is the wrong place for this and Alec is just too self-conscious now. In the middle of a courtyard full of people. Even after a glass of gin.

“It’s too public again, isn’t it?” Magnus asks.

“It’s a little public, yes,” Alec answers, pressing his lips to Magnus’ forehead this time. “Not saying I don’t want to hold you like this though. Or dance with you. Even though I’m a terrible dancer. You really don’t wanna see me dance, Magnus.”

“Maybe if I take you somewhere quiet again then,” Magnus murmurs, not giving up on the swaying. And as they talk, Magnus notices that Alec’s hips do start to loosen a little bit and follow the movement of his hands. Which are led by Magnus’ hips. “We don’t have to stay down here, you know, Alexander. Cat’s here today too...if you’d like to, I could show you around upstairs? Remember what I told you the other night? About the business?”

“Your ideas?”

“Yes,” Magnus answers, wrapping his arms all the way around Alec’s neck now, pulling him all the way in and resting his cheek against his chest as they sway together. “I would love for you to stay now for a little while.“

“I brought a bag,” Alec whispers. “You know, like...an overnight bag?”

Magnus looks up.

“I know that’s really, like...like, lame-“

“It’s not lame,” Magnus hurries to say, placing a hand on Alec’s cheek and stroking it. Then trailing his hand down to the strap of Alec’s backpack. Understanding now why it’s so big. “It’s...it’s not lame.”

“Upstairs,” he murmurs, “Do you think I could shower? I fucking almost flew here on my bike. So aware I was so late, I felt so bad and I think I must smell even worse-“

Magnus just pulls him down by the backpack straps and kisses him deeply. “You smell so good to me,” he murmurs, drawing away then walking backward, Alec’s hands still on his hips. Magnus smiles, and takes up one of his hands, and leads Alec out of the courtyard. Through the bar and up the first flight of stairs.

“Did you notice any of this the other night?” Magnus asks as they reach the second-floor landing.

“Not a whole lot,” Alec answers from behind him as they start to climb the next flight of stairs. “Down there is the kitchen, right? Not where you're starting your new place?”

“Right,” Magnus says, as they reach the top of the second flight of stairs and Magnus unlocks a door that divides the two lower floors from the top three. “This is the new place” - he opens the door on the third floor” - “ _Alicante_.”

He’d only let this door open a crack the other night. Raphael is the only other person he has mentioned this place to. Never showed it to him though. But now Magnus swings the door on it wide and the men step into what for all intents and purposes is nothing short of a ruin. A rubbish-strewn floor with very little else in it apart from drop-sheets and large tins of paint primer. And a cold, unloved industrial smell about it. Magnus swallows. He’s so used to not even looking in here. To walking straight by it and almost pretending like this space doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s become too hard to think about it. He glances at Alec.

“Wow,” Alec grins. “Five-star.”

Magnus rolls his eyes. “Come on,” he groans, pulling Alec up the next flight of stairs. “We’re nearly there.”

Another door separates the third and fourth floors but this one is never locked. Magnus opens it hurriedly, keen to replace the disastrous images below them now with the triumphant ones of his apartment. 

“Oh,” Alec breathes, as Magnus leads him inside and across the treated floorboards, into his living and kitchen area. “This is all so open.”

“I designed it to be like that,” Magnus says. “It took two years to finish this. And the one above. Bedroom and en-suite up on the top floor.”

“You did it all yourself?”

“I called in some favors at times but largely, yes. Designing and decorating are both passions of mine. Upstairs is not as tidy as this. There are boxes full of objects I’ve collected over the years. Things I’d like to put inside the new business. Occult things. Little collectibles and trinkets. Art. Precious, spiritual things.”

“These views are incredible,” Alec says, moving to one of the west-facing windows, where he can make out the glint of water in between nearby buildings.

“If you’re impressed by that, you will enjoy the top,” Magnus says. “One floor up is just enough further elevation for a view of the whole bay. And there are north-facing windows too. So the lights of Manhattan can also be seen. In the daytime, it’s not at its best. But by night the lights are beautiful.”

Alec stares at him. “I can’t believe this is where you live,” he murmurs.

Magnus smiles. “I’m glad you like it,” he says. “If you still want to, you’re welcome to shower whenever you’re ready, Alec. Just up the next stairs. The en-suite is across the bedroom and through the far corner on the right. Do you need your bag with you? Have you brought towels?”

“Oh, yeah,” Alec says, unslinging his bag again and dropping it to the floor. Pulling out fresh clothes. “Ah, damn…no, I...I didn’t bring a towel.”

“There are plenty of fresh ones up there. Take whatever you need. I’ll fix us some drinks.”

Alec heads up the stairs and before too long, Magnus can hear the water running. In the kitchen, he starts to prepare the cocktail he made Alec on the first day he showed up at the Warlock. For what feels like forever he’s been saving these ingredients here. Never expecting when he brought them up on the day of that extra-large delivery that it would take quite this long to finally get Alec here for another taste of this.

“Magnus?” The shower has stopped and Alec’s voice is calling down the stairs. “I forgot my toothbrush! Can you get it from my bag, please?”

“Okay!” he calls back. He leaves the kitchen and walks to where Alec left his backpack.

Magnus picks up the bag and takes it over to the couch, standing behind it and sitting it up on the top of one of the couch's very large cushions. He’s tentative at first, not wanting to pry but he can’t see a toothbrush near the surface of the bag’s interior. There’s a laptop in the bag. It’s kind of in the way. He pulls that out and along with it comes a ream of notes. Stapled together in the same way that the notes Alec had with him in the park that day had been when they’d first kissed. 

But the notes aren’t closed. They're still folded over to a page towards the back and they’re awkward to manage like that. So Magnus picks them up and starts to re-fold the pages. And it’s then his eye catches on something hand-written. It stops his breath so suddenly his knees feel weak.

As it had in the bar. Before he’d invited Alec up here to his apartment. Before he and Alec had danced in the courtyard. Before they’d shared stories while watching the movie. Before Alec had arrived late. When Magnus had thought he wouldn’t show up at all.

As it had before all that, a lump starts to form in Magnus’ throat and a heat starts to prickle at the back of his eyes. Tears threaten to spill down Magnus’ face again. But he’s not afraid of those this time.

“Magnus?”

He turns around to face Alec. Whose hair is still wet from his shower. Its ends still dripping onto his bare shoulders because all he seems to be wearing now is his jeans. Magnus stares open-mouthed. And Alec stares at his scribble-riddled lecture notes. Still held open in Magnus’s hand.


	23. First Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec makes a confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the twenty-third prompt on my bingo card: too much kissing.
> 
> Sensitive content warning for explicit sexual content, nipple play, and angst.
> 
> Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoy it <3

“Did you write this?” Magnus asks.

Alec’s heart pounds; a hammer so loud it drowns every voice that has ever hinted he might not feel all he does. And every false feeling of shame for that. All the private panics and doubts. Every time he’s ever let all those things build up. One on top of the other. Until inside Alec there was a whole wall of insecurity based on nothing but fear of what others would think. And on another day he might need to say _no_ to an accusation like this one.

But today Alec’s heart is a metronome too. It holds on to him like a score holds together the chorus of songs his pulse can sing, now the beat of his heart has finally found its range. On the page of notes he scrawled last Thursday. In between paragraphs about miscegenation laws. And just one note in particular; three words urging him to say them aloud. Yearning to be admitted as much as Alec is yearning to admit to them.

“Yes,” he answers. “I wrote that about you.”

They only make low sounds inside the heights of Magnus’ apartment but Alec’s words fill the whole room. And maybe the whole of Brooklyn too. They’re not all he could say. Not by a long way. But they start a rhythm.

Alec steps towards Magnus. This is the dancing he didn’t have the confidence for downstairs. When Magnus had pressed their bodies together and shown him how to do that. How to sway. He could hardly make his body do that in the courtyard but up here Alec’s bare chest is a sail that billows with pride. And courage he’s only ever dreamed of. 

Alec takes the pages of notes from Magnus’ hand, and he drops them. Discards them again like he could in Prospect Park; they speak the thing that he feels in his soul but he doesn’t need them now to remind him of what that thing is. The pages land softly on the treated floorboards and Alec’s mouth lands hard on Magnus.

They’ve never kissed like this before. What they share is not like what they shared that day by the lake. When Alec was careful and Magnus was tender. When they were both cautious and kissing was new. Now Alec bends Magnus over the couch-back and opens his mouth around him. Searching hungrily for tastes he knows and expects to find. And feeling that hunger returned in spades. 

Their teeth still knock together though. Their tongues still collide and their limbs still jumble. But fingers are not gentle this time on the ends of Alec’s hair. They seize it needily. And he loses balance. His whole body stiffening as his knees brace him against the back of the couch, briefly catching both he and Magnus. Alec grips him for all he’s worth. But they both lose out to gravity in the end, toppling over the couch-back and laughing as they sprawl disarrayed on the seat cushions. Alec’s face ending up in Magnus’ lap.

“Sorry,” he mutters, as Magnus wriggles from beneath him and Alec tries to correct the chaos he’s made with his arms and legs, eventually coming to a kneel on the couch between Magnus' knees. 

He just grins up at Alec. “You’re so gorgeous,” he says. “Everything about you...you are such a beautiful man, Alexander.”

Alec grins back. And all he can think about now is skin.

“Can I take this off?” he asks, his hands itching to reach for the upper buttons of Magnus’ vest. 

“You can certainly help,” Magnus answers because he’s already working his buttons undone himself, from the top. As Alec starts to fumble with the ones leading up from his waist.

His fingers are much quicker than Alec’s; they take over. And before Alec can even ask about the buttons fastening the shirt beneath it, those are undone too. Alec’s hands are inside his clothes. Hot skin fills them and tiny glints of silver catch his eyes. It dawns on him what these things are. And Alec’s heart nearly stops.

“You have p-pierced nipples,” he somehow manages to say through his clouding head and the throb at the base of his cock, which is threatening to command everything here, as hard as he’s trying not to let it.

“Do you like them?” Magnus is asking, his eyes glinting as bright as the little barbells puncturing his body.

“Oh my god,” Alec murmurs, still staring. “Oh my god.”

The earlier rhythms Alec had found have been thrown into chaos now. His body is moving faster than his head can keep a track of. His stomach flipping wildly and his thighs aching. His jeans getting far too tight.

“Alec, I love it when you ask for my permission,” Magnus is saying now. “Do it again.”

Alec just gapes. So Magnus pulls him in by a loop at the hip of his jeans. And Alec succumbs to that; leaning down over him now and tucking his face beneath his jaw. Searching for the spot at his neck with the scent he detected the other night. Part heady cologne, part hairspray. And the rest of that scent is just Magnus. A scent he hasn’t quite placed yet. Can’t quite name. All he knows is it makes him starving.

Alec's mouth starts to work its way down him. Between the opened fabrics. Leaving kisses across his naked skin until his lips arrive at the shallow between his collarbones. He licks across those, unable to help himself from sucking gently at the meatier flesh below. And the flavours he tastes lead him lower. To the firm curves of muscle at the tops of his pecs. Alec glances up. Magnus is watching.

He savours the feel of Magnus’ body against his mouth, briefly finding satisfaction now it has access to so much skin. Obsessed with the way the muscles respond to his kisses. As Alec’s lips knead instinctively against them, over and over. But when Alec kisses one and then the other of his piercings, the flexing muscles and his shaking breaths work together to make him unsure. 

Alec hesitates and glances up again. “Is this okay?” he asks, mouth hovering just above the hard point of one spiked nipple. The little silver end of one barbell still within easy licking distance. “If I‘m doing it wrong-”

“You’re doing it right,” Magnus says quickly. “If you like you can suck on them. Or lick the metal balls on either side.”

Alec starts to flick at the smooth little silver studs, loving the way they feel so hard against his tongue. And loving the sounds Magnus makes beneath him, and the way his hands have found the damp curls of his hair again, and are tugging at them. As Alec’s tongue starts to circle the darkening point of the nipple at the edge of his mouth. Until he can’t help but close his lips into a full suck around it. 

He doesn’t know if it’s gentle or not. All he knows is that it makes Magnus wriggle. But his hands are still caught up in Alec’s hair. They don’t push him away. So Alec keeps sucking. Finding the other hard point with his fingers. And seeking out the cold little barbell ends at its edges. Flicking at those with his fingers while his mouth works.

“Oh god, Alexander,” Magnus breathes. “That is so good.”

Alec glances up again. Magnus is so close to him now. And his knees may be wide but Alec can feel the man’s boot-toes rubbing against his jeaned calves. Holding him close by the legs. Alec lifts his mouth and he and Magnus kiss each other deeply. Magnus’ hands cupping around his cheeks now, stroking his jaw and sometimes dipping back to the ends of his hair.

Alec draws away to breathe and then he starts to kiss down his torso for a second time, and this time hands cradle the back of his head the whole way. Alec kisses his nipples again and then he goes further. Down to his sternum and beyond it. To his abs, each wave of muscle here flexing under the touch of his mouth, just like before, as his lips move adoringly. Leaving more kisses. And Alec’s tongue cannot stop licking at his skin. 

The flavour affects him like one of his cocktails. Warming everything inside. And as Alec realises that, he can feel himself starting to yearn for Magnus to touch him back in all the ways he wants to keep on doing to Magnus. Alec lifts his mouth and glances up for another time, now he's arrived at the leather-belted waistband of Magnus’ dark jeans. 

“Can I undo you?” Alec asks, remembering what Magnus had requested of him earlier.

“Please,” he murmurs.

Alec unloops his belt and then he yanks on the button at the top of his fly, and fumbles with the zipper a little, fingers shaking. And in the end, Magnus helps him and then he removes the rings on his dominant hand. Allows them to fall to the floorboards. And Alec just about stops breathing completely as Magnus removes his cock from his opened jeans. And starts to slowly pull his own length hard.

The sight of him like that below Alec - torso bare, nipples erect and still glistening from the lubrication of his own mouth, cock blushed at the head and Magnus’ cupped palm rubbing over the tip of it, spreading the pre-cum and slicking the growing girth of it - none of any of that is anything Alec can take at a slow pace anymore. Suddenly everything is urgent. And nothing is within his control.

“Ah, fuck,” he huffs, his stomach in knots, fumbling to get his own cock out in time. But he can feel the pulsing already and Magnus is still right there, hard and spread and frisking. And the tastes of his body are still inside Alec’s mouth. The scents of him are in his nose. The sounds of his breath are in his ears and panic is flooding through his veins again. “Oh my god, no-”

Alec comes in his hand, breath shaking as he watches Magnus, who’s saying something. Alec hates to think what it is, even though Magnus’ eyes, while he says it, are nothing except wide and kind and gentle. The hand not around his cock reaching up for Alec’s forearm. It tries to pull him back down with it again, as hot tears prickle the backs of Alec’s eyes, his face aflame.

“Alec, it’s alright-”

“Fuck,” he cusses again. Not knowing where to look. Not wanting to look anywhere. And resisting Magnus’ efforts to soothe him. But the weakness in his body now his heat is relieved is not endearing itself to putting up resistance anymore. It’s hard to stay upright and on his knees. Even though somehow he has managed to keep the cum spilt to his own jeans only, and off of Magnus. But if Magnus won’t stop pulling him down - if he leans in any further - he’ll cover them both.

“It’s alright,” Magnus repeats, pulling Alec’s forearm again. “Angel, please just kiss me.”

Alec collapses, gravity having its way with him. Like it did while they were still standing. He’s pressing his body to Magnus. Still pulling off beneath him. And kissing him again. His mouth shuddering now below Alec’s, whose own lips are aquiver, his body still high and edgeless, muscles still trembling. His kiss in return only weak. Then suddenly Magnus’ mouth is against his temple. 

“Oh my god,” Alec’s breathing, watching the cum start to pattern their stomachs. Until Magnus’ hand slows and jolts and Alec, acting only on instinct, encloses his own big hand over Magnus’, along with the still spurting cock inside it. 

Together they complete the last few strokes it takes for him to finish. And then Alec is touching - just by the very edges of his fingers - the petal-like skin of Magnus’ cock. It’s softer than Alec could have ever imagined. Softer than Jace’s hands ever felt, all the times that Alec had touched those. As soft as the skin of Alec’s own cock. And so fucking warm.

“You’re so beautiful,” Alec breathes to Magnus, pressing himself to his body even harder. So hard its as though they could merge. And finding his mouth once more, and the rhythm again, as his trembling lips spill his feelings over something much better than the dog-eared pages of his own problematic lecture notes.

“I love you,” Alec says to Magnus, his eyes hot again with very different tears than before. And those things are spilling out too. “Magnus, I love you.”

“I love you too,” Magnus whispers, holding Alec’s face and looking him in the eyes. Brushing his thumbs over his cheeks. And then he says it again as well. “Alexander, I love you too.”

Alec laughs and it sounds like he’s choking. Magnus laughs too. He pulls his mouth closer and they kiss again and Alec can taste salt and sweat and Magnus. And then suddenly he can say that also.

“Storms,” Alec breathes. “Ah...yeah, it’s storms...s’what it is. Storms.”

“Storms?”

Alec sighs. His eyes are still damp and his face is still hot but he smiles and whispers, “Have you ever been out in storms?”

“I think so,” Magnus says.

Alec presses his lips to Magnus’ cheek and then to his temple; breathing the scent in through his nose. It’s all over him now. “You smell like the world before storms. When things are waiting for rain. When air is electric. And light is violet. Everything that needs rain seems so green. And brighter than it ever was before.”

“Petrichor,” Magnus murmurs.

Alec brushes his lips the wrong way across Magnus’ eyebrow. Feeling the way the little hairs tickle. Just like kissing at his stubble. “I used to lie outside in the park for hours just smelling that sometimes. Sometimes Jace would be there. Sometimes not. But I would always just lie there and wait for the rain. I knew it would rain, never didn’t. Not when I could smell that.”

Magnus smiles and Alec kisses his mouth again.

“I’m sorry,” Alec whispers against his lips.

“What on earth for?” Magnus murmurs. “For thinking I smell like petrichor? Alec, I am not offended at all by that. There are many things worse I could smell like.”

“You know what I mean,” Alec tries to explain. “‘I’m sorry for what just happened.”

He swallows, unable to say it in any more detail than that. Embarrassed and wishing they could start it all again. No falling down, no coming early. No fucking anything up. But Magnus is stroking him slowly up and down his stomach. Still sending little shivers through him. His fingertips trail up his chest and they circle his pecs and then they brush along the strong lines of the tattoo on his neck. And Alec lifts his chin, inviting Magnus to stroke him there, lengthening his neck and loving being touched here. Feeling his breath hitch. Wanting to feel Magnus’ mouth there too. Closing his eyes and imagining that. Enjoying being stroked so lovingly. Almost forgetting all about feeling so embarrassed.

“Alec, it’s fine,” Magnus says gently.

Alec mumbles something that’s incoherent to even himself. The stroking and the deep tones of Magnus’ voice murmuring kind things to him are making him sleepy. Even though cum must be starting to cloy in his pubes by now, and that’s hard to rinse out. Even though the heat from their bodies is making what patterned Magnus’ belly start to run down the crevice made by where their bellies meet. He can feel it. Magnus can probably feel it too.

“Alec?”

“Mm?”

“What do you want to do now?” Magnus asks. “Lie here awhile? Shower?”

“Mm...lie here awhile...maybe shower...maybe tissues...but I think that everything has gone everywhere by now so maybe it’s too late for tissues.”

“Tissues?”

“Mm-hm...tissues…Magnus?”

“Yes?”

Alec shifts. Thinking now he probably should have another shower. The tissues start to make him think of home. That’s probably all he’d use to clean up if he were there alone. And it dawns on him he’s not either of those things. He’s neither home nor alone. He smiles at that. And nuzzles his face into Magnus’ neck again. Maybe they both should have a shower.

“You’re my boyfriend,” Alec whispers into Magnus’ ear. 

Magnus kisses his temple. Over and over again. “I am your boyfriend,” he says in agreement. “Your free-wheeling bisexual boyfriend. Who may need to shower eventually. Am I ready to be seen without hair and makeup though? This is the real point of contention.”

Alec smiles at him, enamoured again. “You always look so beautiful,” he murmurs. “Like a beautiful swan, Magnus. The lined eyes...so graceful...even when you’re falling off a couch, you’re still so graceful. How do you do that?”

“Ah,” Magnus says. “Now that is the mark of the true _High Warlock_. Please never forget that I am your free-wheeling bisexual and _graceful_ High Warlock boyfriend, Alexander.”

“Will you come meet my parents then?” Alec asks. They glance at each other. Alec swallows. Feeling a little stupid for asking. “Sorry...it’s way too soon for that, right? You sleep with me once and then I’m like-”

“No,” Magnus says hurriedly. “No, Alec, it’s not too soon at all...are you serious?”

“Yes,” he says quietly. “Remember Izzy?”

“Of course.”

“Her birthday is next week,” Alec says. “On Saturday. My parents are hosting a dinner for her at our house. Jace is bringing his girlfriend. My mother is bringing her boyfriend. I don’t know if my father will be there or not. But-”

“Yes,” Magnus says.

“Yes?”

“Yes,” he repeats, smiling. “You’re asking me to go with you to that, right? As your date?”

“Absolutely, I am asking,” Alec says, grinning and feeling his heart start to thud inside his chest again. “Yes, I am asking you to go with me to that. Not just as my date though, Magnus. As my boyfriend.”

“I, Magnus Bane,” he says theatrically, “Free-wheeling bisexual and graceful High Warlock, would be honoured to accompany you, Alexander Lightwood, who is also my very gay boyfriend. Who I am also very much in love with” - he brushes a finger over Alec’s lower lip, and then he kisses it - “to your sister’s birthday thing at your house on Saturday. Although I will need to ask Catarina...again...perhaps if I tempt her with babysitting and tickets to a show at the Nitehawk this time-”

Alec snorts. “Oh my god...I just thought of something...imagine this, right? Hi, Mom! I just stopped by to tell you that I’m gay and here is my freewheeling bisexual High Warlock boyfriend.”

Magnus laughs. “You left out graceful.”

“Oh my god,” Alec says, laughing too. “You know, you would not be laughing if that happened...she would just about be dying of shock at the gay part. Let alone the part about you being bisexual.”

“Excellent,” Magnus grins. “I love a challenge.”


	24. Male Escort - Part One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus accompanies Alec to a special dinner for Izzy's birthday at the Lightwood family home. Part 1 of 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the twenty-fourth prompt on my card: male escort.
> 
> Sensitive content warnings for casual racism, strong language and angst.
> 
> Thank you for checking this out and I hope you enjoy the read <3

“Ready?” Magnus asks.

He and Alec have just walked south from Brooklyn and the Warlock to the top of 3rd Street in Park Slope. For a little while now they’ve been standing beneath a streetlamp, not too many doors up from Alec’s parents’ brownstone townhouse. Magnus is wearing his very nicest burgundy shirt patterned with intricate gold details made using a French technique that he hopes will impress Alec’s mother, Maryse. Who Alec has repeatedly said, along with his father, Robert, is obsessed with France and Europe. Although Magnus is getting a sense, the more Alec talks about his family, that Robert is something of an enigma to Alec.

On Monday afternoon, after their first time together on Magnus’ couch, Magnus and Alec had shared a shower. Magnus had then cooked dinner for Alec, helped him put his clothes on to wash and dry, and Alec had ended up staying over. Their morning sex had been just as sweet as their first time, even though Alec had been just as nervous and all they had continued to do with each other was to give and receive handjobs. Alec had seemed comfortable with that and it had pleased Magnus just fine. Simply to have Alexander there with him was wonderful. Just to wake in his arms had felt like a dream. 

At points throughout the week, Magnus had continued to feel that way. That the sudden escalation of their relationship from the soft and safe dates they’d been having to sex and love professions seemed surreal. He’d be in the bar, restocking. His head full of figures and suppliers and recycling, when an image of Alec would sift up through the dirge to the surface of his mind. And bathe it in the memory of his smile for a moment. Or in the primrose colour of his lips just after Magnus kissed them. A shade he has only ever seen on Alec’s mouth. Or in the natural length of the lashes of his eyes when they were closed while he was sleeping. At these times, Magnus would feel his heart swell and his stomach knot in both excitement that he’d seen these things at all, and a terrible yearning to see them again. So Magnus would message Alec or call him. But they had not seen each other again until Alec had arrived, already dressed in his suit, a little under an hour ago at the Warlock. 

Since Tuesday, Alec had just been too caught up with his research and his classes for them to spend any further time in person together. What he had been doing this week was something that sounded very important, and that Magnus didn’t fully understand, but that he could still tell was significant for Alec’s study. And it had caused him, on several occasions this week, to delay the next time Alec stayed over. Magnus had been with many a love-struck pup but he had also been that same pup himself. He was not about to let Alec disrupt the trajectory of his own study for a love that Magnus knew was going to last. They had plenty of time. That had been torturous to try to explain to a horny Alec though, so Magnus had suggested a workaround and they had set a little daily schedule for when they would talk. 

Magnus had already sensed Alec liked routines and he seemed eager when Magnus had suggested this one. Even today, Saturday, which Magnus had spent working and which Alec had spent at a research event for his study - another thing Magnus didn’t fully understand but could appreciate the gravitas of - they had spoken first thing in the morning when Alec woke. Then at lunchtime, when Magnus took a break. And the final time was typically at night when Alec was in bed. To say goodnight to each other. Goodnights that had sometimes involved Alec needing tissues for reasons that Magnus had come to understand since their post-coital conversation on the couch on Tuesday. Magnus never bothered with tissues. If he was alone he got straight into a shower. Or if he had company, well there were far more enjoyable ways by which men might clean up cum. But they hadn’t done their third check-in tonight. Alec had just shown up in person for their date instead. 

It had taken a tremendous amount of self-control from Magnus to refrain from tearing the suit right off him downstairs in the bar when he’d first walked through the tall, narrow ground-floor doors. Alec’s kisses had been so hungry, as hungry as they’d been inside Magnus’ apartment on Tuesday, so Magnus could tell that he wasn’t alone in feeling like that. They’d not stayed long in the bar then either. Magnus figuring the sooner they left it, the sooner the prospect of what they might do after all this meeting parents business was over might reveal itself. He was hoping very much that Alec would be able to spend a second night at the Warlock tonight, although he was prepared to stay at the Lightwoods’ if the need arose. He sensed Alec wouldn’t want to do that though. The poor thing was having enough trouble as it was right now simply getting there at all.

“I am not even remotely ready for this, Magnus,” Alec answers, frowning down at him. The strong light overhead from the street lamp throwing dramatic vertical shadows straight down his pretty face. Theatricising the impending sense of doom that Alec can’t seem to let go of about the dinner they’re about to attend, to celebrate his sister’s twenty-second birthday. “Let’s just go back to your place. Pretend I’m sick. Pretend we never even came down here.”

Magnus strokes his cheeks again. Alec’s arms are around his waist. They’ve been following a similar loop to this for several minutes now.

“It’s your choice, Alexander,” Magnus says gently. “I love you and I’m here to support you. Whatever you want to do. I would certainly be happy to go home and play _doctor_ to you if it’s what you’d really like.”

Magnus looks up through his eyelashes at him and he’s pleased to see that this suggestion has at least turned one corner of Alec’s mouth toward the stars, visible already now the nights are starting to shorten as October deepens.

“Oh my god,” Alec murmurs, nuzzling the end of his nose to Magnus’ and running his hands over his back, sending shivers through Magnus. He presses himself closer to Alec, his hands still cupped around his cheeks. “You would be the sexiest doctor.”

“I know, right?” Magnus says, grinning. Then he returns to being concerned because he still is. “The only issue I would have with that really is that you honestly look so incredibly beautiful tonight, Alec. I’m not making that up at all. I would do it but I feel mournful to call time on you looking as you do now for any less time than I can convince you to keep these clothes around your magnificent self. And, to be extra truthful, I would also be wan to miss an opportunity for the rest of the world to see what I can see now in you. The incredible man who I have fallen so completely in love with. He deserves to be out tonight.”

Magnus lifts his mouth to Alec’s and they kiss softly again under the streetlamp.

“I’ll be there the whole time with you,” Magnus murmurs against his lips. 

“Maybe we could just go for a little while,” Alec murmurs back. 

“Right,” Magnus says, nodding. “Pretend we have a prior commitment and must split our time this evening between two events. We’ll say we can stay for one hour only. After that, I turn into a pumpkin.”

“Don’t tell her that,” Alec says, chuckling. “She hates pumpkin.”

“Well, what about if I say I’m your male escort and you’ve only paid me for the first hour? And any extra time she’ll have to top up because you’re a poor university student who can’t afford high-end prostitutes.”

Alec laughs. “Magnus, we’re not telling her that!”

“Oh, why not?” he says, smiling. “It would be so fun to pretend that. Almost as fun as me pretending I’m your doctor.”

“Well, for one thing, she’ll have done some kind of catered course thing,” Alec grumbles. “Once, for one of Jace’s birthdays, she did a twelve-course degustation. So it’ll be hard to leave once we’re in and everybody’s sitting down. But for another reason...a more important reason, Magnus...you are not my male escort. You are my boyfriend.” He brings his hands to Magnus’ face and strokes the light stubble along his jaw. “If you really want me to though,” Alec adds, “I will call you _pumpkin._ That’s a pretty cute pet name.”

Magnus chuckles. “ _Pumpkin_ ,” he repeats. “You will be my pup and I will be your _pumpkin_.”

“I’ll be your what?”

Magnus laughs. “Nevermind,” he says. “Alright then” - Magnus brings his hands down to the lapel of Alec’s jacket and smooths the fabric - “We’ll make it clear at the door how long we can stay and we’ll stick to it.” His hands move up to the little black bow tie at the base of Alec’s neck. “You really do look beautiful tonight, Alexander,” he whispers. “You take my breath away and I am so incredibly proud to be your boyfriend...I bet Izzy can’t wait to see her big brother on her birthday.”

Alec smiles at that and he and Magnus touch foreheads, sharing breath.

“I think I’m ready now,” he whispers. “Let’s do it quickly before I get cold feet again, and we have to start this whole fucking thing over.”

“Okay, my lovely,” Magnus whispers back. 

Magnus has worn heeled boots tonight and they click down the tree-lined concrete of 3rd Street as he and Alec walk hand in hand to the little wrought iron gate outside Alec’s home. Alec unlatches it and swings it open for Magnus.

“After you,” he murmurs.

Magnus smiles and steps through first. He waits for Alec to close the gate again behind them, and stands at the bottom of the short flight of balustraded stairs. Alec straightens up and takes a deep breath. He looks at Magnus and extends his hand. Magnus smiles again and takes it, and then they walk together up the stairs to the front door of the rather austere-looking brownstone. Alec rings the doorbell and they wait in silence, hands still held. Until shoes can be heard rapping in a slow approach from the other side. The door opens and the image of a woman Magnus doesn’t know - dressed in Dior, which he does know - emerges through the dark dense mesh of the security door.

“Good evening, Alec,” she says. Her eyes flicker to Magnus but she doesn’t speak to him. He has braced himself for this kind of reception; it’s not the first time he’s met a lover’s parents.

“Mother,” Alec says. 

She opens the inner door and Alec steps through first. His hand is still clasped around Magnus’ and he leads Magnus through the doorway until the three of them are standing in an opulent marble parlour. 

“Mother, this is _Magnus_ ,” Alec introduces. The formality with which he addresses her doesn’t wholly surprise Magnus. He squeezes Alec’s hand. Alec squeezes back and glances at him. “Magnus, this is my mother. _Maryse_.”

Magnus and Alec unclasp hands and Magnus offers his to Maryse. 

“ _Magnus Bane_ ,” he says smiling as warmly as he can. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Maryse. You look stunning in that colour, if I may make mention of it. There are not many people in this city who can wear that shade well. But it would appear that you are one of the enviable few.”

Magnus watches very carefully for Maryse’s very slight reaction to his carefully worded compliment. She lets slip only the faintest cock of one perfectly-sculpted eyebrow. But she doesn’t take Magnus’ hand. She only stares at it momentarily. And then she looks at Alec.

“You’ve brought a man with you,” she says. 

“Yes,” Alec says.

Her eyes flick back to Magnus, who still has his hand proffered toward her. “Is that _devoré_ velvet?” she asks, running her painted eyes over his burgundy shirt.

Magnus smiles. “Why, yes, it is,” he says. “Thank you so much for noticing. Alec has told me about your love of France and French things. Which reminds me-”

With the hand he’s had extended to her, Magnus reaches inside the back pocket of the leather pants he’s wearing tonight and withdraws a very small hide pouch. 

“Please accept these as a token of my gratitude. It is an honour to attend your home,” he says, extending the pouch out to her. She does accept this, opening up the little bag’s neck and turning out the pair of bi-coloured gold, antique Victorian earrings onto her palm. Alec glances open-mouthed at him. Magnus had very intentionally not told Alec of this. He gives him a wink. “The pearls, Maryse, are real orient half-seed. And if you turn the pieces over, you will notice the stamp of the eagle is evident on each of the backs. Which, as I’m sure you know, signifies their authenticity.”

Maryse looks up in wonder at him. “Where on earth did you get these?”

Magnus smiles. “I appreciate beautiful, meaningful things,” he says. “And it is my pleasure to share that appreciation with others. As they share theirs with me.”

She looks from the little gold earrings in her palm to Magnus and back again. Then she looks at Alec. 

“Is he Chinese?” she asks.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Alec says in protest. “Mother, you can _not_ -”

“No, I am not Chinese, Maryse,” Magnus starts to answer for himself, placing a light hand on Alec’s forearm. But Alec doesn’t hush.

“Oh, _fuck_ no! No fucking way on this earth,” he says to Magnus, who braces himself again. “No fucking way...you do _not_ have to defend yourself from this shit, Magnus. She has no right at all to ask me for explanations about your cultural background like that! And in front of you? Like you’re not even in the room? Holy shit, is she even kidding? Oh, _fuck_ man...this is unbelievable...and...oh my god...you know what?”

Alec turns to address his mother directly. Magnus stares at him in awe.

“I was expecting some things from you,” Alec says to Maryse. “I really was. I am not kidding, Mother. I was preparing myself for things to be said here by you. And I was preparing to also have to say some things back to you. In response to that. Things about my sexuality. Things that I have never been able to say to you. Or to Dad. But I was not expecting anything to be said about this. I was not expecting _race_. And I cannot believe it, Mother, that you are really choosing Isabelle’s birthday, of all the fucking things under this sky that you could possibly choose to raise this at, to come out now with this appallingly racist sh-”

“Alexander,” Magnus whispers, squeezing Alec’s forearm, “It’s okay.”

Alec hushes and Maryse’s eyes return to Magnus. 

“My heritage is Chinese,” he continues to say to Alec’s mother. From exactly where he left off. In answer to the question she asked. “But I am a Costa Rican-American citizen, Maryse. I was born in Limon and I was raised in San Francisco. When I was grown, with the support of my parents, I chose to move to New York to study.” 

Magnus takes a moment to glance at Alec, who’s still breathing hard. And then his attention returns to Maryse. Who’s still listening. 

“So,” Magnus continues, “Maryse, are there any more questions that you would like to ask me now about my background? Because although Alexander is right, I would be more than happy to answer as many as you have. You are his mother, after all. And Alexander is extraordinarily significant to me.”

“Where did you attend college?” she asks.

“NYU Stern School of Business,” he answers.

“And what is it that you do now?”

“I own the titles of two hospitality enterprises,” Magnus says. “Both of which are run from the five-storey brown brick I own in Brooklyn proper. Where I also live.”

“Hospitality?” she asks. “What sort of hospitality?”

“Well,” Magnus says, “You are very welcome to attend and see for yourself, Maryse. We are licensed to serve both food and beverages. I’m very sure we could cater to your tastes. Perhaps you’d like to share what you drink? Or, if you wouldn’t mind, I could suggest Bellinis. We import a very fine Prosecco. But do correct me if I’m wrong to assume. I’ve been in the industry for nigh on a decade and sometimes I feel I have developed something of a sense for things as ephemeral as tastes. But I still get things wrong sometimes.”

Maryse glances at Alec. She is still holding in her palm the little Victorian earrings Magnus gave her. “Are you in love with him?” she asks Alec.

Magnus’ hand is still around Alec’s forearm. Alec shifts his arm and re-grips Magnus’ hand.

“Yes,” Alec says.

“How long have you been together?”

Magnus squeezes Alec’s hand.

“A month,” he answers. “Maybe?”

Maryse looks down at the earrings again. 

“Jace came with Clary,” she says, glancing up again at Alec. “You will remember her, I suspect.”

“Oh, yeah,” Alec says. “I knew they started seeing each other.”

“Isabelle has no one,” Maryse says, her eyes still on Alec. Magnus notices how they widen now. “My two adult sons are looked after but my only daughter has no one. On her twenty-second birthday. She’s all alone.”

Magnus squeezes Alec’s hand again.

“Well,” Alec says, “Maybe that’s okay by Izzy...Mom...maybe...you know...Izzy just doesn't wanna be with anybody right now.”

“Alec?” Maryse asks.

“Yes?” he answers.

“There’s someone who I’d like you to meet,” she says. “He’s a police officer. Works for the NYPD. He says he gave a lecture at NYU to third-year Law students recently. You may have attended? Alec, I...well, I’d just really like for you to meet him.” 

“Is Dad here?” Alec asks.

“Your father couldn’t make it.”

“A case?” he asks.

“That’s what he said on the phone.”

Maryse glances at Magnus.

“Thank you for the earrings," she says.

Magnus considers her for a moment. He understands what’s in her eyes. The threat of tears and their imagined impact on very well-executed eye makeup.

“You are welcome, Maryse,” Magnus says, inclining his head briefly in a show of acknowledgement. "I am happy for you to have them. You might consider this as an exchange of sorts?"

Earlier, she'd barely allowed him a faintly-cocked eyebrow. Now, though, Maryse extends her whole open hand. “Perhaps I ought to start this again,” she says.


	25. Male Escort - Part Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Magnus accompanies Alec to a special dinner for Izzy's birthday at the Lightwood family home. Part 2 of 2.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the twenty-fourth prompt on my card: male escort.
> 
> This chapter contains explicit sexual content (oral sex, masturbation, drunk sex).
> 
> Thank you for checking this out and I hope you enjoy the read <3 It feels like it's taken absolutely forever to sort out what I wanted to include in this one so I'm excited to be able to finally post it - one more to go!

Maryse doesn’t keep them long after that. Her reattempted reception of Magnus and Alec is brief albeit more courteous. She then directs them up a flight of stairs but doesn’t follow, perhaps staying downstairs to work with caterers, especially if Alec’s earlier musings on the nature of this event are to prove accurate. Magnus can hear her voice below, as well as an amount of crashing, but the sounds are soon replaced by Alec’s voice. Muttering away about a need to go and rescue Izzy.

“Alexander, have you ever actually met your sister?” Magnus asks in response to his muttering.

“Of course I have,” Alec chuckles.

“Well, I’ve met her too,” Magnus says, pulling Alec close and embracing his shoulders so the men can stand almost cheek to cheek. “And as noble as that is of you, I’m not sure she’s the type needing rescuing. She’s not like you.”

He draws back a little, not exactly wary of a reaction but certainly curious as to what one might look like.

Alec just smiles. “Are you implying that I need rescuing?” he asks.

“We-ell,” Magnus answers slowly. But the perturbed look Alec’s feigning back is too endearing for Magnus to maintain his tease for long, and he grins. “You handle yourself just fine.”

“I need rescuing from my mouth,” Alec admits. “I don’t think I’ve ever sworn so much my whole life. Least not in front of my mother.”

Magnus cocks an eyebrow. “The first part of that sentence completely transported me to a whole other context,” he confesses.

“What do you mean?”

“Nevermind,” Magnus says, still grinning. “Your mother’s heard cussing before, I’m sure. It was what she hadn't that mattered. Your passionate words made her think. They changed her mind.”

“I gotta get that under control,” Alec says, sounding as fretful as earlier.

“Making your mother think?” Magnus asks. “Or changing minds?”

“The emotion,” he says. “It’s not professional.”

Magnus frowns. “Professional? You’re talking about relating to your family-”

“Now my clinic’s over and done with,” Alec begins to explain, “There’s really only another semester to go before internships. Most people have had theirs sorted since the first year and I know what I could go and do...but I’m just sort of nervous about it. I don’t really know why...I just can’t seem to settle on something. I’m not sure I’m ready, maybe that’s why...maybe I don’t wanna settle on what I could just go off and easily do...how privileged is that?”

Magnus places one hand on Alec’s chest, and rubs there gently, thinking for a moment before saying quietly, “You took a gap year, right? After high school?”

“Yeah,” he answers, sighing. “Two, actually...me and my cold feet, huh?”

“Life is long,” Magnus says, still rubbing little circles into Alec’s chest with his palm. “Decisions not made on the spot are not always the hallmarks of cold feet. Or privilege. Must you rush into something if you’re not quite ready to do it yet? A law degree, last I heard, isn’t a thing that expires.” He looks up at Alec. “It’s not yoghurt.”

Alec sighs. Magnus lets himself be pulled into another embrace, feeling Alec’s lips come to rest against his temple as he murmurs, “My parents want me to finish. My father wants me to go and work with him. But I don’t know...part of me wants to do something else. Not entirely but...well, if it’s law then a completely different client base maybe...maybe try for somewhere like Housing Works even. I’d probably learn a hell of a lot more there, and feel like I was making a lot more difference. My father's firm just represents wealthy people with all the kinds of ridiculous problems they have...I’d be angry and over it before the end of the first day, I bet.”

“I'm sure you’d be wonderful anywhere,” Magnus says. “I appreciate your wanting to make a difference but I can certainly understand your wanting to work with your father too...don't feel shame in that...I’m sorry he’s not here this evening.”

“He’s busy,” Alec mutters. “I mean, they’re both busy, I guess, but...I don’t know...it doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter,” Magnus says quietly, shifting in his arms and looking up at Alec. “It’s on your mind therefore it matters.”

Alec’s eyes begin to cloud. “I don’t know why all this is coming up now...of all the fucking places...I’m sorry...this is supposed to be about Izzy-”

“Don’t be sorry,” Magnus murmurs, returning his palm to Alec’s chest. “Let yourself feel things, Alexander. Your worries won’t vanish just because you don’t wish to acknowledge them.”

“You know what?” he sighs again. “It’s Max I really worry about. He never sees Dad...he used to take me and Jace to kendo classes every Saturday...Max doesn’t get to go do any of that sort of stuff...like, that’s one thing I’d really love to do, is to get Max into something like kendo...I used to love doing martial arts so much...Magnus?”

“Yes?”

Alec cups his hands around Magnus’ jaw and strokes his cheeks with his thumbs. His fingers feel so light and yet Magnus feels as though if he were to close his eyes now, and let all the boundaries of his body dissolve, those hands would still hold him down to the earth. So sure and steady and safe. Alexander’s hands are just that reassuring. Even when his head is full of doubts.

“I’m so glad we’re not downstairs anymore,” Alec murmurs. “That was so awful and I am so sorry about that too.“

“It’s completely okay,” Magnus says, brushing his lips over Alec’s as his hands find the ends of his hair and begin to stroke the back of his neck with his fingertips gently. “I’m still very happy to be here with you. I wouldn’t want to undo anything.”

At the top of the stairs, between kissing and a little more heart-to-heart with Alec, on the garden level of Alec’s house, the evening continues to improve. And when Magnus really considers it, well it’s hard to imagine that anything short of a jet engine falling through the Lightwoods’ ceiling could be worse than the initial reception he received here. But the house is certainly pleasant enough and so is the dinner they eventually share. It turns out to be not a sit-down affair at all but an outdoor garden party. Completely suiting Magnus’ tastes. 

But he can tell that Alec would rather be absolutely anywhere else. Magnus observes the ways in which he interacts with his family and their close associates. Even Maryse's boyfriend, Luke, who seems pleasant enough to Magnus, and who Alec has clearly not met apart from hearing him speak in a lecture, Alec is nonetheless wary around. 

Magnus strongly suspects that in any other context the two would get along very well, especially considering the way they begin to banter about some of the subjects Alec has studied at NYU. But it’s a very wooden version of Alec who Magnus encounters here. One a little similar to the version he met in the bar when Alec had been there with Jace. And nothing like the man Magnus knows when they’re alone. 

This is an Alec who, around these people, is constantly reminded of who he should be, perhaps. Of things he’s promised them. Commitments. And of expectations of him they still hold. But which don’t necessarily reflect his own needs or choices, only the heavy weight of obligations. Anxious to do the right thing by them. Why is Alexander so like that? What does he have to lose by doing the perceived wrong thing? 

Izzy doesn’t seem to be at all like that. Is it something about being an eldest child then? Magnus is an only child and his parents expect certain things of him because of that. But they also accept where he needs to diverge. Celebrate the son they have. Is it just a question of courage then for Alec? Maryse had accepted Magnus into her home as her son’s boyfriend, she hadn’t asked him to leave. Is she perhaps under the weight of another set of expectations? Are she and Alec similar in that way?

Alec’s interactions with Jace are especially intriguing to Magnus. He notes throughout the earlier parts of the night how Alec and Jace still eye each other off. Until Jace turns away or Alec returns to Magnus. As though the pain of all that is still tender to touch and Alec is working through it. Perhaps there’s an element that Jace works through too. Although his emotions are much harder to read. 

Magnus and Alec don’t kiss inside the garden at all. But Alec seeks out his hand constantly. And every time he does, it feels as new as the first time they touched. As though they need to do all this over again. Like a performance which Alec drives. He wants to be affectionate with Magnus in front of people who he knows and who matter to him. It isn’t like the movie screening where Alec knew virtually no one. And Magnus feels like he could get very used to this. To Alec’s public displays of affection for him, now that he is out. And learning perhaps what it feels like to be proud. To be able to feel that openly for the first time.

Alec’s interactions with Max are interesting to Magnus too. Alec seems to have a sixth sense for where his little brother is at all times. It both fascinates Magnus and makes him feel reassured. And the feeling reminds him of how he feels around Madzie. As though there’s a portal that exists just there in that feeling. Which could take him from the life he’s come to know, full of work, and to a life he might have, full of family. And yet it’s not a separate place. Not a place he would jump to and from. This feeling is more like a way by which those two places would merge. Not the surface of a pool, with an in or an out, but a whole entire ecosphere. The thing that makes the pool even possible.

“Mom says your boyfriends, is that true?”

Magnus jumps a mile. Completely forgetting where he is. He has to take a moment to remember just that much. Nevermind what’s just been said. Or by who.

Fortunately, in that same moment, Alec kneels down and smiles at Max. 

“Yeah,” he says. “That is true, Max. I’m gay...and” - they both look up at Magnus, whose head’s still in something of a whirl - “This is Magnus.” Alec looks back at Max, grinning. “He’s a warlock.”

Max looks up at Magnus again. “Hi,” he says. 

“Hello,” Magnus answers, the boy’s scrutinous eyes reminding him a lot of his mother’s. But only at first.

“I like your ear cuff,” Max says. “Is that a sapphire in it?”

“Ah, no, actually,” Magnus says. “It’s lapis lazuli.” 

“Lapis lazuli is a metamorphic rock,” Max says. “I was gonna say that. I knew it was lapis lazuli, I only thought _maybe_ it was a sapphire...sapphires are minerals but they’re both still gemstones.”

“Wow,” Magnus says. “You really seem to know quite a lot about rocks. That’s very impressive.”

“I know a whole lot about gemstones,” Max says. “I stopped collecting random rocks ages ago. I have twenty-three gemstones. So, are you gonna come back here sometime? Babysit me or something? Because if you are, I can show you them all. Mom says I still need babysitters even though nobody else in my class has to have them. But, whatever, I guess… better than having some nanny all the time...so, like...are you really a warlock?” 

“Of course I am,” Magnus says. “I am a warlock who knows jiu-jitsu.”

“Jiu-jitsu?” Max repeats, frowning. “Is that like kendo? Alec and Jace know kendo. Do you know kendo?”

“Ah, Japanese jiu-jitsu is a little like kendo, yes,” Magnus says. “Brazilian jiu-jitsu is just about grappling but the Japanese form of it was developed for the samurai. So there’s combat as well as grappling.”

“Samurai are cool,” Max says. “So, do you know the Japanese one? The samurai one?”

“I do know that one, yes,” Magnus answers. 

“You never told me you did martial arts,” Alec says, an expression of genuine surprise on his face when Magnus glances over at him.

“Can you show me some samurai moves?” Max asks, looking from Magnus to Alec and back again. “I really wanna learn how to fight like a samurai.”

Magnus glances at Alec again, unsure of how to answer that. But Alec is already grinning.

“I’ve still got my shinai upstairs,” he says. “Jace might have his too, I’ll go ask…”

Time becomes irrelevant once Alec and Jace begin taking turns teaching Max on the concrete out the front of the Lightwoods’ brownstone. Magnus, eventually joined by Izzy, adjudicates from the front stairs.

“You look great tonight,” she comments, after Magnus helps her arrange the delicate, reticulated black-silver necklace around her neck; his gift to her for her birthday. It’s shaped into a handle at one end and the end of a lash at the other. An intricate miniature whip she can wrap. And she seems to take great pleasure in the way she can settle those ends together just at the top of her cleavage. “That shirt is a gorgeous colour on you, Magnus.”

“I’ve missed you,” Magnus says. “Happy birthday, Izzy.”

“Thanks,” she says, playing with the ends of her necklace again. “I’m really glad things worked out so well between you and my big bro…”

They share some things together there, in between adjudicating. Including platters of leftover food and refills of the unbelievably boozy punch that keeps being brought out from inside by increasingly tired-looking wait staff. Until Maryse finally calls time on the kendo because Max looks just as tired as the wait staff by that point. But also far happier than when Alec had first introduced him to Magnus. And Alec is certainly looking happier. And it's midnight by the time they actually leave Alec's house to head back to Magnus’ apartment above the bar.

“So how long did you learn jiu-jitsu for?” Alec asks as they stroll away westward up 3rd Street. “I still can’t believe you never even told me that.”

“All the way through high school, almost,” Magnus says. “Kept doing it after I started dancing. The cardio was really good for that. And the dancing made me stronger in the armed stuff. Although I never did competition so that was more about control...like, the mental discipline, you know?”

“Oh my god, I used to love that about kendo, yeah,” Alec says, slipping his hand inside Magnus’ and squeezing it. “You have to show me jiu-jitsu grapples sometime.”

Magnus smiles, his belly pleasantly full of canapés and petit fours and his body pleasantly warm from the punch. 

“I think you will find,” Magnus says, as they reach the edge of Prospect Park, hands still entwined, “That I will be showing you those fairly soon.”

They don’t make it past the park. Magnus pulls Alec down in the grass and pulls him down over his mouth and they kiss. And he struggles to imagine anything beyond just this. Beyond just being horizontal in a park in the dark with Alexander. His fingers sprawled across his palms as Magnus lies on his back in the grass. Alec with his knees either side of Magnus’ hips, kissing his mouth and his neck. Softly nuzzling inside the buttoned neck of Magnus’ shirt as very vaguely Magnus wonders if he should take Alec back to the apartment before they go too much further. But it is a struggle to think any further. And before he knows it Alec has allowed him to gently roll him onto his back. So now their positions are reversed.

“Was that a jiu-jitsu move?” Alec asks, and to Magnus’ pleasure, he’s giggling. 

“Absolutely,” Magnus answers, unable to prevent himself from giggling too. “That was the reverse hiplock seduce-your-boyfriend-in-a-public-place-at-midnight-while-you’re-both-completely-drunk-on-whatever-the-hell-was-in-his-mother’s-punch-at-his-sister’s-birthday plata.”

They both laugh. 

More than just clumsily Magnus leans in, his hands unbuttoning the shirt beneath Alec's open jacket lapels, the little bow tie staying fastened up around his neck. And before he quite knows it, Alec’s pecs are beneath Magnus’ mouth and he can taste a light salt on his bare skin. Above a very faint trace of cologne. Something very floral and airy. Nothing like the bronzy Jo Malone that Magnus wears. But a scent which he's growing to learn is just so Alexander. 

Magnus kisses down his chest. It’s not smooth like Magnus’ own. Soft little curls tickle at his lips and he follows them down to his stomach, his hands unfastening Alec’s belt and trousers together, just as clumsily as they undid his shirt a moment ago. Multi-tasking because Magnus knows that in a park, even at night, you’ve got to. 

He pauses and looks up. “This is okay, right?” Magnus murmurs, lifting a hand to Alec’s cheek, checking and double-checking. 

But Alec just nods and hums, his eyes wide and his jaw slack and Magnus moves his fingers toward it. Stroking lightly over his bottom lip as he loosens the top of Alec's pants. Slipping the tips of his first two fingers inside the lower edge of Alec’s mouth. And his hand inside Alec's pants. 

Alec kisses and sucks the fingers while Magnus pulls his cock out and kisses its head. Alec groans when Magnus opens his mouth around it and sucks. Just once then draws away. Looks up. Then licks up to the tip from as low on Alec's dick as he can go. Given that most of it is still inside his trousers. Eyeing Alec in the ambient light of the park’s street lamps the whole time. Mindful of how aroused he’s been the last two times they’ve been together like this, and how they’ve never actually done this specifically before. And equally mindful of just how much he wants to taste Alec now. 

Magnus slides his fingers from within Alec’s mouth and takes them to the front of his own pants. Alec feels enormous inside him by now. His hips rolling already, fucking into his maw. So Magnus is quick to start, hastening what he’s chasing, even though this is so delicious. To have Alexander spread out here in the middle of a park in the dark. 

He looks up at Alec’s face again, his cheeks so pink that even in the dim of the greyest part of the night, Magnus can still see every thump of that roseate colour he loves so much on Alec. He sucks again, pressing down with the flat of his tongue and rubbing at Alec’s glans.

Alec tips his head back and Magnus can taste the salt of him and then hot semen fills his mouth and Magnus swallows it. One hand still around the base of Alec and the other around himself. Not quite ready yet to finish. Squeezing to prolong his own pleasure until Alec is completely done. And until Magnus has completely swallowed all of him.

Alec breathes Magnus’ name. Stares at him with hooded eyes and the slackest mouth Magnus has ever seen him wear. And that's when he knows he's ready. Magnus lifts his head, his own cock still in his hand and he sits up, still astride Alec. And pumps his dick with his fist, finishing over the grass. Cum pearly white in the orange-hued night. His spine curves, his head tips skyward. And movement catches Magnus’ eye.

He flattens himself to Alec’s chest, head spinning a little from the sudden movement combined with the effects of his orgasm and still being as drunk on punch as he is right now. 

“Are you okay?” Alec murmurs, his voice still breathy and laboured.

Magnus shushes him. “Someone is, like...walking their dog over there, or something,” he whispers.

“Oh, shit,” Alec snorts. “Really?”

But neither man moves. They just lie there in the grass. Stilling and letting their breathing slow. Until Magnus feels Alec’s hands slip around the back of his neck. Brushing through the short hairs of his undercut, and humming softly against his skin, his mouth lingering now at Magnus’ cheek. Leaving kisses. 

Magnus chuckles a little, his eyes still on the distant figure. Hoping the dog’s not off the lead but neither the figure nor the canine seems to have noticed the men in the grass. The figure moves off and Magnus relaxes as he watches the loping silhouette of the dog move away too. 

Only then does he close his eyes and settle his cheek down flat against Alec’s bare chest. Feeling the full effects of his high now as he listens to the rhythm of the beat of Alec’s heart. Riding the soft rise and fall of his chest. Kissing the curve of the pec in front of him. Noticing the hard little point of his pink nipple. Reaching with his fingers to tease at it very lightly. Alec shudders and Magnus stops and looks up at him again. 

“Sensitive?” he whispers.

“It's okay,” Alec whispers back. “I don’t mind it.”

Magnus does it again. Alec shudders and they both smile.

“Thank you for inviting me to go to that with you, Alexander,” Magnus says, raising his hand to Alec’s cheek again and stroking it.

“Thank you for agreeing to go,” Alec answers.

“I would never have ever said no,” Magnus says. “Never would I ever have said I wouldn't go to that with you.”

Very lazily, he lifts his mouth, making it only as far as Alec's jawline. Pressing his sleepy lips there. 

“Magnus?” Alec murmurs. “Do you wanna just sleep here in the park?”

“Not really,” Magnus mumbles, still caressing Alec’s cheek with his fingers, and with his lips still light against his jaw. “I’d like to convince you to come back to mine...I had meant to get you all the way back there...before we did a thing like this...but it seems I was unable to follow my own little plan.”

Alec chuckles. “I didn’t mind the diversion.”

“I didn’t mind it either...did it feel good? I hope you're not allergic to grass.”

Alec snorts. “What you do to me feels amazing,” he murmurs. “Always...I love you...and I'm definitely not allergic to grass. I'm actually not even allergic to anything.”

Magnus moves on Alec. Shifting around so he can straddle him again. Sitting up on his chest. Even though he’s still so high and could so easily sleep. He leans down and kisses Alec’s nose. Then his forehead. His temples. His mouth. And then into his ear, Magnus whispers it too. “I love you as well, Alexander...come home with me.”

So that’s what they do. They button back up and then hand in hand the make a groggy stroll back to Brooklyn. Climb the outdoor fire stairs and enter the top floor and the bedroom from there. They don’t shower. They just strip each other’s clothes and fall into Magnus’s bed. Magnus snuggling inside the curve of Alec’s body. To sleep that night as soundly as Magnus can ever remember doing.


	26. Candidate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alec gets a pleasant surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In response to the twenty-fifth prompt on my bingo card, the last one(!!): strong women leaders.
> 
> This chapter contains canon-typical dub-con kissing.
> 
> Before you read the final chapter, I'd just like to say thank you so much for reading this work at all. It's been a really fun thing to work on and it has helped a lot to have subscribers and to receive encouragement along the way and I'm really grateful. 
> 
> This is the end of the BTB2020-inspired fic but there is another set of prompts which I've started drafting into a sequel to this AU so if you'd like to read more of this have a look for that one in August.
> 
> Thank you so much again for giving this a go and I hope you enjoy the final read <3

“May I tempt you with a bingo card? They’re a buck.”

Mid-semester elections to student boards and organizations are being canvassed for today at NYU, and Washington Square Park is teeming with people. Alec’s just searched for ages for a safe place to leave his bike, after circling the whole campus twice, and almost giving up. Almost deciding not to leave the contraption anywhere and committing himself instead to stoically wheeling it around with him all afternoon. But if he could choose? Well, he’d rather have his hands free for holding other things. Like a bingo card, he guesses. Or better yet, the beautiful man who’s offering one to him now. 

From where he’s knelt on the bitumen, locking his bike to the available bike hoop he’s finally found, Alec looks up at Magnus and grins. “You’re really gonna charge me...me, who’s a student, Magnus...so that you, who’s not a student...who’s a person with an actual real-life paying job...can canvass for somebody? Who is it, anyway? Raphael?”

“I work for myself!” Magnus protests. “That is not really the same thing as having a paying job...and _no_ , it is not Raphael. He has his own campaigner. Someone who I think your stepbrother’s girlfriend knows pretty well. Your sister knows him quite well too.”

“This is bribery, Magnus,” Alec teases.

“Oh, come _on_ ,” Magnus groans but by now he’s also grinning. “It’s _fund-raising_. Campaigns do not run cheap! Although electoral processes probably should be a lot less hinged on affordability and a lot more hinged on ideas and equity, but _anyway_...and by the way, as well as thinly-veiled bribery? I am also very open to other practices completely off-the-books such as tipping today, Alexander. So write that down in your notes.”

“Tipping?’ Alec repeats, chuckling. “Tipping is a lot more legal than bribery, Magnus. And anyway, tipping for what exactly? How unsuccessfully you’re trying to paper over the fact that you are totally trying to buy my vote right now?”

“I am doing no such thing,” Magnus says, still grinning. “You would legitimately be tipping me for how thrilled you are. That not just anyone is here now to present you with the chance to both support and learn about the policies of a very worthy candidate for election to a very worthy group of people. At your own university campus, no less. Not just anyone but me, Alexander. The High Warlock of Brooklyn. Also your boyfriend, in case you forgot.” 

He cocks his hip, bats his lashes, and flourishes the bingo card through the air in the same fashion he did at the beginning.

“You are beautiful and hilarious and entirely unforgettable,” Alec mutters, chuckling and standing up. “And I am so in love with you...alright then, warlock. Here’s your tip-” 

Alec pulls Magnus in by the waist and kisses him deeply. It’s been nearly a week since Izzy’s birthday celebration. Magnus hadn’t woken on Sunday until the middle of the afternoon and Alec hadn’t stirred much earlier. Hadn’t risen, either, until Magnus did. Just lain there in his bed, lightly dozing and still holding Magnus inside his arms while he pieced together the night before. As memories of it all returned.

Alec can’t ever recall a night like he had with Magnus last Saturday. He’s still a little unsure of where the time went, it all seemed to speed by so quickly. Had they really had sex in a park? Whose swings he’s been playing on since as far back as he can remember. Had he really come out to his family? He had definitely introduced Magnus to his ten-year-old brother. And he and Max had sparred with Jace. It had felt so good to reconnect with his stepbrother. They’d hardly spoken since the day of Alec’s awful tutorial.

Jace was still enrolled in Law but on Saturday night he’d been talking about switching his study load to part-time. And maybe also looking for some work. Jace had seemed really happy with his choices and Alec hadn’t questioned them at all this time, and both of those things were why Alec thought that teaching Max kendo moves that night with Jace had been so fun. While Magnus and Izzy watched on. 

And that had been amazing too. To realize that his sister and his boyfriend - two people who meant so much to Alec but who he’d never seen interact - got along so well. While Alec and Jace and Max had played, Izzy and Magnus had hardly stopped talking. And Alec had been left with a very strong suspicion that a lot of that talking had been about him. Often when he’d stolen a glance in their direction they were stealing glances back. 

But Magnus has said nothing about any of the conversations he had with Izzy since then. And Alec hasn’t asked about what they talked so animatedly about. Even though Alec and Magnus have spoken daily over the phone since Magnus called a cab to take Alec home late on Sunday afternoon; he had no clean clothes with him, only the rumpled, grass-stained suit he’d worn the night before. He needed to get back home that day; a week of classes and lectures and research awaited. 

Alec hasn’t been able to see Magnus since but putting his mouth to him again right now, for the first time in days, feels as good as drunk public sex and coming out and sparring all at once. Phone calls are no substitute for what this is like; for holding his boyfriend close after being apart. And for showing not just telling Magnus everything Alec feels, now that he’s feeling it all again. And, in turn, feeling all Magnus feels too.

Because it isn’t just last Saturday night that’s a whirlwind now to Alec. Not just a few hours that have flown by so fast it’s hard to articulate everything as cogent things that happened in some kind of logical timeline he could reassemble next morning. Or say aloud. Analyze and take apart with objective and well-organized thoughts he could turn into words. Things he could write down in dot points. Things he could argue for or against.

It’s the whole of the past month and a half since the semester first began. Back when Alec had stood almost right here, on this very spot with Izzy, on that first day of _Welcome Week_. When he’d chaperoned her like a good older brother. At least until she’d ditched him. At first, he’d felt that rejection keenly. And he hasn’t told Magnus any of this but that feeling had sort of been like what he’d felt that day Jace walked away towards the Tisch School.

If Alec were ever to talk about Jace to Magnus, he wonders what Magnus might say. Perhaps he already knows. Alec knows he's talked to Izzy about him so maybe Alec doesn’t actually need to tell him himself. Perhaps he's talked to Jace himself? Alone without Alec around? Alec doesn't think so though; they hardly spoke to each other at all on Saturday. Or at least not that Alec witnessed.

One thing Alec knows for sure now though is that Magnus is right about Izzy. _Izzy_ is right about Izzy; she’d told Alec herself. She was grown, she could handle herself. But Alec would never stop being her brother. He would always watch out for her. And for Jace and for Max too.

So it wasn’t really rejection then, that feeling he had. Right about here, six weeks ago nearly to the day. The same one he had when Jace walked away. It was just that at both those times Alec had started to see how important it was to also look out for somebody else as well. For Alexander Gideon Lightwood. And to understand not only what was right for him to do but also what felt right. And that was to listen to his heart.

“I still think things like this should be free for your boyfriend,” Alec murmurs, drawing away from Magnus’ kiss but still holding him close and nuzzling the tip of his nose beneath his jaw, to find Alec’s favorite place to nuzzle. The soft skin just beneath his ear. Where the scents of cologne and hairspray that he’s missed so much mingle. So reminiscent of Magnus. “Where do we go to play it, anyway? Does your candidate have a marquee?”

“Well, we’re not playing anything yet, Alexander,” Magnus says. “You haven’t actually bought any cards yet and you can’t play bingo without at least one.”

“I tipped you pretty good, though,” Alec says, grinning. And shifting so their eyes can meet.

“You did do that,” Magnus agrees, grinning back. “But like I said before-”

“Seriously?” They both turn to look at Izzy. She’s just appeared at the edge of the park. 

Behind her, as Alec gets the chance to properly look at the scene now, is a sea of colored marquee tents, in all the colors of the rainbow. Inside are candidates conversing with people and handing out various things. Izzy holds several more bingo cards. And on the lapel of her dark leather jacket, which she’s wearing over her corset top today as an extra shield against the cool air of the afternoon now they’re deeper into fall, is a button-style badge. Alec frowns at it, loosening his hold on Magnus so he can get closer, in order to inspect it. And verify what it is he thinks he might be seeing now. 

“Shirking off paying a measly one dollar to support your own sister’s campaign to work towards the greater good,” Izzy’s saying. “That’s pretty low, big bro.”

But Alec’s still frowning from her face to the button-badge. “Is that...is that a picture of _you_?” he asks Izzy, as Magnus steps back and Alec stares at him too now because he’s wearing the exact same badge. “Oh my god..."

“As I was saying,” Magnus resumes, “Without payment we simply cannot let you have a bingo card. It would simply be unethical of me to permit that and yet be as involved today as I am with my candidate’s cause.” He looks at Izzy and beams. “I have a campaign to manage and we need funds. Cards and flyers and buttons aren’t cheap. And your sister’s platform for running is very worthwhile. You can learn about all her policies in the game. And if you win the game, well, there is also a reward. It’s not a kiss reward but...because I know how much you like those, Alexander, I could make it one like that if you really wanted.”

“Wait a minute,” Alec says, still looking stunned from Izzy to Magnus. Still having trouble believing this. “Isabelle... _you_ are running for _election_?”

“Bingo,” she says, beaming. “So you better buy that card, Alec. And when elections come around in a couple of weeks, you had also better vote for me.”


End file.
